


BEHAVE!

by Golden_Ticket



Series: TOGETHER! [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: "canon"-following, 2016-2018+, B2Ten, Counselling, F/M, Montreal Era, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, Slow-ish burn, Telling the Family, Therapy, Unplanned Pregnancy, as canon as it can get in rpf you know, chemical pregnancy, complicated friends to lovers, early pregnancy loss, hella meta, let's get introspective up in this, switching POVs, transitional period
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-15 15:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 110,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14793098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Ticket/pseuds/Golden_Ticket
Summary: orThursdays, 4PM Sharp***“If you’re ready to work, today I would like to look a bit at your past,” JF says. “I was thinking it might be a good idea to theme these sessions a little bit so that we have a kind of path to follow working through this. I must admit that I don’t usually dothiskind of partnership coaching so I asked a colleague of mine who specialises in it. And she gave me a couple of pointers on the work and this one made the most sense for your…special circumstances. Is that okay with you?”“Sure,” Tessa pipes, ever the obedient people-pleaser that she is, and since Scott doesn’t really have an opinion onhowhe dies, if he must (and he obviously will if they continue with these Thursdays), he just nods along and gulps down his entire glass of water in one swoop. Moderation, after all, has never been his strong suit.***This is the story about three people in a sports psychologist's office in Montreal and seventeen of their Thursday, 4PM appointments. Otherwise known as a very in-depth character study of our beloved emotionally challenged ice dancers disguising bio/psycho-analysis as fiction.





	1. The topic of today’s session is…

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends, since I am almost done with my last chaptered story (STAY!, it is called, if you want to read it, it is set in the same universe as this story), I am starting a new one because recently, I have been really so interested in their entire therapy/counselling history, especially their time with JF, because Scott talked about it so much in the podcast interview with Scott Livingston. 
> 
> So this is my way of digesting it.
> 
> A lot of future chapters, as well as the title itself are inspired and lean on the book of the same title by Robert Sapolsky, which I am currently reading, that deals with the biology of human behaviour. And as both that, and Tessa and Scott are endlessly interesting to me...here we are.
> 
> Thank you as always for your input and opinions and I hope to hear from you, what you think of this concept.

Thursday 4:15 PM, June 16th 2016

 

“We mostly got our shit together last year,” is really the first thing of substance that Scott says in their third mental prep session in four days. Before, it was all just small talk. “Inter-personally, I mean. Sorry for swearing.”

“No need to apologise,” says Jean François Ménard with an easy smile. “You don’t have to censor yourselves here.”

“Awesome,” laughs Scott. “That would’ve been hard.”

“He curses like a sailor,” Tessa chimes in unnecessarily from her spot an arm’s length away from her partner on the couch. Their brand new mental prep coach nods, his face kind and open.

 

'Mental Prep Coach' is really just a fancy, kind of sport-ish way to say therapist. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, dubbed Canada’s ice dance sweethearts, are both keenly aware of that fact and they’ve been at this place –the two of them facing down a psychiatrist– a lot in the nineteen years they had spent skating competitively together. Given that the truly “professional" part of working at their relationship had not started until after Tessa had that first surgery on her legs and for a plethora of reasons their relationship had dribbled down to acquaintance-status (the most prominent being Scott barely talking to her for two months because he just didn’t know _how_ ). Since then, they’d been in and out of sport’s psychologist’s and marriage-counsellor’s offices nearly every week of training together and honestly, they both know without that work, they wouldn’t have made it into this new setting in Montreal in the first place. 

 

Tessa feels comfortable here, in this smartly decorated, classy space. It’s kept mostly in whites, light wood and dark greys and she thinks she would’ve bought all the same things if she had to put together a sensible-feel-ey psychologists office. It’s got the right touch of familiarity to not feel clinical but it’s still minimal enough to not lull you into a sense of false homeliness. She still knows exactly _where_ she is. Beside her though, she can see Scott mentally prop his feet on the coffee table that separates them from their coach already. He’ll forget where he is in approximately ten minutes at the latest, she can tell from the way his hazel eyes dance over the furniture, and how he runs his hands through his dark brown hair when he catches his reflection in a picture frame of one of Jean François' kids. This is his arena already, like a dog that’s annexed his new surroundings after a day or two. Plus he really likes Jean, she can tell. And he’s gonna let his guard down here, Tessa knows it. And dreads it, if she’s honest.

 

“Anyway, I think we’re in a decent place, right now, eh?” Scott says, picking up the thread he started, looks at Tessa and waits for her to nod her agreement. Which she does. So hard her high ponytail bops. Looking at him, she wonders if she should dye her hair darker again, it’s a softer brown now, a few shades lighter than his but maybe, when they’re going back to competition, she should go a bit darker, to resemble him more. So they look…more together. Even when they feel...she doesn't know how they feel. Together, yes but also precarious. Like they're dangling from a cliff half the time and she has no idea what's at the bottom of it.

“Yeah, we’re good,” she smiles, solely for Scott, the other man in the room forgotten for the moment. They need that lately, the reassurance that they’re fine, maybe because it took so long to get there again.

 

“That sounds like an excellent place to start,” Jean François says, taking Tessa out of the moment and her eyes away from Scott’s. “You know how we talked about the athletic side of things in our first two sessions on Monday and Tuesday and a big part of that was the hundred percent performance equation, with the distractions taking away a good chunk of that perfect hundred percent.”

Tessa nods and can see from the corner of her eye that Scott matches her movements exactly, in complete synchronicity, as if it was an on-point twizzle. 

“Now, as we said, the perfect hundred is a fantastical concept that’s unachievable but we’re gonna work together at you being _excellent,_ getting those distractions down to a minimum, so you can perform the way you want to and the way you’re training for,” Jean continues. “And going in fresh with you, not knowing any of your history together other than what’s on Google and what Marie-France and Patrice have told me about you personally, I am just going to assume, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that you can be both great assets to each other but also great distractions. Which is, and that’s important, also totally normal for any athlete working in a team in their sport.”

 

He looks at them without much challenge or like he expects anything scandalous, which is a nice change and it’s really one of the better ways they have been asked about the nature of their relationship so far in their lives. Not the entertainment-angled “Are you dating” but a pretty clear cut assumption they can comment on or not, if they so choose: “Are you a distraction to each other?” Which is a question Tessa thinks she can answer, so she does.

 

“Um, I do think we can be…distracting to the other person sometimes,” she starts but doesn’t get far because Scott cuts in.

“That’s kind of an understatement, eh?” He asks and she turns her head around to him to watch his brow furrow and his lips set into an almost inquisitive smirk.

“Well, _personally, off-ice,_ yeah,” Tessa amends, both for Scott and for their therapist. “But I think as _athletes_ , we keep each other very focused and set on our task at hand. We rely on each other a lot on competition days and in training.” Scott nods beside her.

“In regards to the athletic side we are having this conversation in your other two weekly sessions,” Jean François reminds her gently, probably vaguely aware that she is stalling a bit. “But Thursdays are going to be about the two of you and the distraction-potential of your, like Scott said, _interpersonal_ relationship.”

“Which is in a good place right now,” Scott, in turn, reminds _him_ gently.

 

“I don’t doubt that,” Jean says over a well-meaning smile. “And let me be clear, I am not a tabloid journalist. Whatever your relationship is, you don’t need to share anything you don’t want to share. I am here to provide you the opportunity to put in the work to seize your potential but this isn’t an interrogation. I am here to help.”

“Of course,” Tessa says quickly, lest he think they’re being ungrateful or unwilling to do the work which they’re not. They’re all in this time, 150%. For themselves, for each other, for their love of the sport. Whatever it takes, they’ll do it. That’s what they’d shook on. So Tessa is as honest as she can be when she goes on: “It’s just…it’s hard to explain what _this_ is.” She gestures between her and Scott a bit forlornly, hoping to get her point across as openly as she can. “We honestly don’t know ourselves what it is most of the time.”

“Which I am guessing can be distracting, both off _and_ on the ice,” their coach surmises and yeah, he’s got them, both of them. They just nod, half-amused, half-sheepish. 

 

“Yeah,” Scott shrugs, tackling the exposure head-on as he usually does. “Try the most distracting thing in my entire life.”

Tessa draws in a sharp breath, not really knowing why. Only that it’s a kind of a warning to pause. She isn’t quite ready yet. For what, she doesn’t know. Certainly not to hear Scott saying anything too meaningful about her and how she pertains to his _entire_ life. Most certainly not in front of a near perfect stranger. 

Entirely predictably, Scott glances at her from the side and she can feel his eyes searing holes into her skull. _A little more time, Scott, just give me a little more time. I’m not ready._

 

“Well,” Jean says and she studies him studying them, waiting out the poignancy of the moment until he continues: “Why don’t you just get me up to speed about the state of things between you. Like I said, no need to share everything. Only what you are comfortable with and what might harbour potential to be distracting in these two years to come. Basically, I would like to know in the grand scheme of things, what we are working with here.”

 

Without needing a second to think about it, Tessa turns her head to Scott to check in and have a silent exchange, the way they do in these types of situations. _Are you going to take point? Are we talking about 2008? Are we talking about Carmen? Are you going to shut me up, when I go off-book? Do you trust me?_ Always and always this question: _Do you trust me?_ Always and always the answer: _Yes._

Eventually, they nod to each other and Tessa holds her breath. She isn’t really in the mood to rehash any of it quite yet, but Scott won the stare-down and since he’ll be speaking (because he usually remembers better than her and he can talk more freely, more from the heart), she lets him barge ahead. It’s bound to happen anyway, so why not now. _Think of the bandaid,_ she tells herself. _Off is off._

 

“Should I just…start at the beginning?” Scott asks, turning to Jean François again.

“That’s usually a good place to start,” their coach jokes and so Scott takes a deep breath to brace himself. Tessa sits up straighter too and turns her attention on him, ready to listen and pick up on his inflections, on his face and how it moves and shifts recollecting their story. Just the way she has learned it. And so maybe she can jump in when he get’s too chatty and gives away too much.

 

“So, Tessa and I met when we were kids,” Scott starts, fully at the beginning. “She was being coached by my aunt at our rink but I didn’t really notice her until Sports Camp where she was kind of like, around and people called her “Big Hands” because she always used to wear these big mittens. She skated with Danny a little at first, I think that’s when I really started to know who she was. She had a giant crush on me, I knew that. But most of the girls had because I was loud and running around the place like a dog wanting attention. And I was kinda the only boy there in that age bracket, so it wasn’t really surprising, I guess. Anyway, that went away eventually.” He pauses for a moment and Tessa stays perfectly still. (That stupid crush never fully went away but she’ll be damned if she tells him this, let alone _here._ )

 

“After a year of coaching her, I think, my aunt, who was coaching me in Singles too, put us together to skate as a pair because my old partner had quit a couple of months earlier and…that was it really. I thought I was gonna be a hockey player and T thought she was gonna be a ballerina but somehow we became ice dancers together and never really wanted to stop. We dated, briefly, as kids. Mostly because her sister and my cousin thought it would be funny, so we were a hot topic for like six months or something until I broke up with her and then we actually started talking to each other and became friends. And then we were friends for a long time. When I was fifteen and Tessa was thirteen we moved to Kitchener-Waterloo so we could train every day and then at seventeen and fifteen, we moved to Canton, Michigan to train at Arctic Edge with Marina and Igor. The skating really picked up for us and we got to do all this great stuff, go to Croatia and Japan and everything and it was fun, mostly. It was also hard sometimes, growing up there. And then on the distractions-side of things…I don’t know I guess I started having a serious crush on her at seventeen? Andthenwehadathingbeforeshewenttohavesurgeryonherlegs.” 

 

He mumbles that last bit so fast that Tessa can barely catch it all herself. It’s really just because she knows the fact intimately that she knows what he is saying. And, yes, it seems they _are_ talking about 2008. 

“Excuse me?” Jean François asks with a slightly amused expression, not fooled an inch by Scott’s charm (good for him, because that’s a pit one hardly gets out of and doesn’t Tessa know it?).

“I said: We had a thing,” Scott repeats, speaking clearly now and looks down at his fiddling hands like he always does when he talks about things that feel a little too private for him. “Before she went to have surgery on her legs. We talked about it Monday, the Compartment Syndrome. I think we were scared of what would happen to us if the surgery didn’t take and we couldn’t skate together anymore. I mean, we were just kids, really. And it happened, we…you know, a couple of times before she went away and then it was really difficult with the separation and all the complicated stuff and I kinda…fucked–I kinda messed it up. We didn’t talk to each other for almost two months and when she got better, our relationship was pretty much broken. We started with the counselling then and it took us like, a year, maybe two until we were actually real friends again.”

 

“Then we got to do Vancouver and won the Gold and that was amazing and we deliberately stayed away from anything with each other, so we couldn’t botch it up again and focus on skating and then I had a girlfriend for a long time and Tessa…had her things and that was that until 2013 when we did Carmen. And like, we always say it was Carmen but I’m not sure that’s what it was. It was just like, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. We’d been pushing and pulling at each other for years at that point and eventually, we just snapped. We started messing around again and it wasn’t very smart and it wasn’t really fair because I had started seeing somebody else then. And eventually, we stopped, Tess and I, with the hooking up, because it was getting more serious in my relationship and it was…well, _distracting_ what we were doing and the skating suffered. So we tabled it. Or at least that’s what I thought.” Scott looks over at Tessa for a moment and she sits even straighter. This is the part of the story that’s the rawest, freshest set of wounds they’ve given each other (and secretly, she would really rather not talk about it at all, possibly ever, maybe not even with Scott). 

 

“I broke up with my girlfriend before Sochi, because it wasn’t working with the training hours and what I was going through at Arctic Edge and with Tess and I don’t know. Sochi was terrible in many ways but we were so together there, we really pulled through for each other and we were really so proud of what we accomplished there. But then again, the writing was still on the wall. We knew we were going to leave Canton and we both needed a break from skating but I…I don’t know I guess I believed we would kind of stay together and maybe just think about some of the possibilities we hadn’t had before but it wasn’t…Tessa wanted to explore so many things and I wanted to not think about skating or being an athlete or competing or anything and Tessa was always so linked to that.” Scott speaks and Tessa listens and she wants to fold into the sofa cushions and disappear. _I’m not ready for this,_ she thinks. _I don’t want to think about it._

 

“So I wanted to keep her without and outside of the skating,” Scott sighs, continuing on, steadfast and unwavering in his conversational, almost breezy tone that almost unnerves her. “And she wanted to know who she was _away_ from skating and I don’t know, that meant mostly away from me, I guess and we kinda blew apart over it. That was two years ago. And then Tessa took over the world and I on the other side, transitioned _very_ poorly, like I said on Tuesday. I was drinking a lot and completely rushed the next relationship I got into and I wasn’t talking to T much and it took a long time until I came to terms with the fact that retirement wasn’t all that I thought it was going to be and that my life was kind of getting away from me. So we started talking about maybe coming back. And then we decided that we wanted to commit to it, which was last fall. And I don’t know, we were better by then, it felt right again. We’re best friends. Again. And we moved here and we talk a lot and it’s going great, eh? We’re trying to keep it uncomplicated.”

 

He looks briefly at her for her blessing nod and Tessa has a pretty good idea that the subtext translation of that last phrase he used (meaning: “We’re trying to keep it uncomplicated” equals “We’re trying to not have sex with each other again”) translates very clearly, based on Jean François’ knowing look.

“Tessa, is there anything you would like to add to that?” Their new therapist asks them and sounds like all their old ones combined.

“No, yeah, that was pretty much the story,” she says, shifting slightly uneasily where she sits and looks up to find Jean maintaining careful eye-contact with her, to seize her up but she holds her ground. She’s unflinching with these things, has learned to be because Scott had always been useless for that. He wears his huge, silly heart right on his face and so she had to learn to pick up the slack, to be unreadable, a damn fortress, while the man next to her got to be an open book.

 

“Okay then,” Jean says. “Thank you for your honesty and for sharing. Now, knowing all this among the three of us, our big task is to decide how we want to move forward with it. Keeping our goal in mind to minimise the distractions and what was that, what you said Scott? Keep things _uncomplicated?_ Which is in the vein of that as well, I think.”

He looks at the pair of them for a while, seeing if his silence invites more of their input but when it doesn’t, he simply goes on. “Have you already talked about how you want to _keep_ things uncomplicated? Do you have a strategy?”

“Um, well, the strategy is to just not do it,” Scott says, pauses, flinches into an unintentional grin as per the unintentional innuendo and then adds: “Make it complicated, I mean.”

“And how do you go about that?” Their coach asks, toneless and letting the short breech of seriousness on Scott’s part go like a patient teacher would a school boy’s spit-ball throwing. “When there is potential for complications?”

 

“Mostly one of us leaves the room,” Scott says. “Mostly me.”

“So you put distance between yourselves?”

“Basically,” Scott nods and checks to see if she does too, which of course, she does. If only on autopilot, because this is not going where she wants it to, at all. It’s getting too real for her by a mile. And she has trouble listening with how much she wants to just jump out of the window and make a run for the hills.

“Do you use a cue for it?” Jean asks them.

Tessa doesn’t really know how he gets the idea that they would actually use cuing for _that_ but Scott looks like he has never heard anything that makes more sense and says, turning his face to her because he is apparently possessed by complete madness and _wants_ her to suffer: “When I feel like I want to kiss her, I leave. That always seems like a sensible cue.” 

 

_Okay._

 

Tessa’s face plummets along with her stomach. Her cheeks on fire and her mind racing. 

 _Not ready for this, please don’t talk about what is happening right now, please don’t. Let’s just do what we do and not label it, don’t name it, don’t do it, don’t say that, don’t say those things Scott. Please don’t. Don’t say you want to kiss me when we can’t… Don’t make it so hard,_ please _._

Biting the inside of her cheek hard, Tessa stares blankly ahead, trying to reign in her features, trying to catch her galloping heart before it gets too loud for them to miss it.

“And Tessa, is there anything you do, particularly to keep things uncomplicated?” Jean asks, face interested but just impassive enough to coax Tessa into actually answering him.

“I try not to think about it,” she says, labouring for an even voice. “Anything. I try to focus on what we have to do.”

 

“So basically you are avoiding the issue?” Jean François asks again, to clarify and Tessa already knows what’s coming. Because it’s _insane,_ it sounds insane what they do.

“Basically,” Scott agrees and he too, has lowered his voice, kind of cowered down a little, anticipating exactly what they’ll get.

“I don’t need to say it, do I?” Their sports psychologist asks and Tessa feels called out as if from a principal after causing a fire in Chem or something.

“We need to deal with it, huh?” Scott asks and the way he says it is so self-deprecating and so perfect, timing-wise, that Tessa can’t help but break out into a genuine laugh that turns into a nervous giggle, but still a sincerely amused one. And even Jean François has a smile tucking at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. 

 

He looks nice when he smiles, Tessa thinks and really, he’s an attractive guy, tall and thin but not overly gangly, dark hair greying on the sides, with an eternal four-day-stubble and kind, observant eyes. He’d really be more her type than Scott, physically, and if he wasn’t married (because that’s not a thing she wants to be near to ever again). But even if Jean François was single and interested, that entire other-men-ship has sailed for Tessa years ago if Ryan is any indication. Ryan, her on-again, off-again fling that, as of the back end of 2014, has become a permanently off-fling for the sole damn reason that he isn’t Scott Moir. Sad as that is. But she doesn’t want to think about the implications of that, about what it means for the rest of her life that nobody she ever knew made her feel like Scott did (does?), so she doesn’t. Instead she re-focuses on Jean, even if it’s not like he’s telling her anything she is particularly keen to hear.

 

“Yes, you should deal with it,” he says to Scott. “Avoiding the subject will not make it go away or make it less of a distraction. I think this is what we’ll focus our Thursdays on, going forward. Trying to work through that situation and unpack it as best we can and then deal with it. But first, I think we should try and work out together what kind of relationship it is that we’re dealing _with_ here. Agreed?”

“I don’t think that’s a thing we can define today,” Scott mutters. “Like Tessa said, we haven’t been able to do that in the last fifteen years.”

“No, I was thinking we take the next couple of weeks to try and work our way there, every Thursday, 4 PM sharp.” Jean François says and Tessa could be wrong, but she thinks that there is a hint of a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, a sense of anticipation, like a kid with a new Lego-set, a new puzzle, waiting to be solved.

 

Oh dear Lord, the first couple of months in Montreal are shaping up to be even more challenging than Tessa had anticipated. In her head is a steady chorus of _‘I’m not ready, I’m not ready’,_ making itself heard and felt, right into the tips of her toes, making her body tingle unpleasantly all over.

 

“Oh and as for homework,” Jean says to them, with that ‘Let’s wrap this session up’-tone that Tessa is honestly so glad to hear right now. “I want you to start cuing this. Scott, it’s no use when you just leave in moments like that, if you’re in training or competing and things get distracting, you can’t just walk away. So I want you to say “pause” or “too much” or whatever you choose to let each other know when you need a break. And then work through it. You have two years ahead of you where you need to be together nearly every day. You have to fight. Flight is no longer an option.”

 

And it’s funny how that last bit is pretty much a prophecy of what is to come. Funny, indeed.

 


	2. ...Adolescence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we are and the work begins. 
> 
> As you can see from this chapter, we'll be very theoretical here and there because damn, these kids gotta earn their happiness with a little introspection, right?
> 
> All biology knowledge is roughly transcribed from the wonderful book "Behave" by Robert Sapolsky, which is the reason why this fic is called what it's called. (It's such a good book, I can only warmly recommend it!)
> 
> Thank you for every comment so far, I really hope to hear more from you regarding this chapter...it feels like a second album almost, always harder than the first one ;)

Thursday 4:02 PM, June 23rd 2016

 

On Jean François’ couch, Tessa and Scott sit down for their second relationship talk in as many weeks. There are tall glasses of water waiting on the table, prepared for them by JF, whom Scott has taken to call just that as by the other man’s express permission (“Because honestly, everybody calls me that, Jean François is a mouthful…the Cirque guys call me _Jeff_ mostly,” he had said and laughed). 

 

The water is a godsend after the gruelling two hour work-out they’ve just had. Tessa, beside him, still smells like the shower, her hair near well still dripping in her messy top knot. It’s a little distracting, the way a single stray drop drips onto her neck and runs down the side of it, all the way down to her collar bone. Achingly slow, enticingly sexual somehow, and Scott balls his hands into fists and pinches the insides of his palm hard to _focus_ and get his head in the damn game and out of the gutter. He’s here to win the Olympics, not bend her over the couch and have his way with her and _you better remember that, Moir. You’re here to_ minimise _distractions and_ maximise _performance. You’re an athlete, act like one_ , he tells himself sternly.

 

They’ve seen JF as per their schedule for their athletic mental prep on Monday and Tuesday and had talked at length about shaping their perspective heading into training, about nerves and pressure and how they felt about their physical progress and it had been so easy, so very simple going into the sessions with him knowing that it wasn’t Thursday. But now it is…and now their coach is gearing up for another hour of dealing with all the _complicated_ stuff they would rather omit. And Scott knows it’s a part of the whole process and an important one at that but he would really rather _not._  

 

Things with Tessa had just gone back to somewhat normal late last year (whatever weird brand of normal they admittedly were) and picking it apart in therapy felt a little like playing Jenga against themselves. You never knew when one thread of conversation could chip away at their foundation and he was loathe to find out, really. But alas…150% percent in and committed to this comeback to competitive ice meant they had to deal with the precarious stuff as well. He just prayed that it would turn out to be a good thing, that it would help them win instead of loose them _this_ , whatever it was that they had. Because if he lost that, he truly doesn’t want to know what would become of him.

 

“So, before we start,” JF begins, unaware of Scott’s inner turmoil, and seems eager to get the show on the road, which, yeah, is understandable since he’s the one all comfortable getting to ask the questions, not the one who has to answer them and account for…well, whatever the hell it is Tessa-and-Scott are doing these days. “I was wondering how the cuing is going for this particular situation.” He gestures at them, as if they weren’t both absolutely aware of what he meant.

 

 _Terrible_ , is what Scott wants to say. “Pretty good,” is what he actually says and finds Tessa nodding and smiling beside him. And maybe it really is going ‘pretty good’ for her. Fucked if he knows what is going on in her head about their whole thing these days, honestly.

 

Truth be told, he has no idea if he’s making things up in his mind, a dangerous cocktail of over-sensitivity and wishful thinking at play there, but he could swear that since they introduced that last, personal cue, things have positively spiralled from ‘a little puzzling’ to ‘what the everloving fuck is happening here?’. Because he has had to use that cue with her in the seven days between the first and the second Thursday Hour of Truth about _twenty_ times. 

 

One time in her apartment when he let himself in with his spare key to collect her for their drive over to the rink and she greeted him in a towel (“Pause”, he’d said and noped out backwards, out of her doorway to wait outside). One time in his car as they sat in the parking lot of Tim Horton’s sipping on Treat-Yo-Self-Milkshakes after the gym and she had used her index finger to wipe away a little spill from just under his bottom lip (“Pause”, he’d said and she pulled her hand back as if it was on fire and if you had asked him, he’d have said it was, going from how his skin burnt where she had touched him). 

 

But mostly, he’d told her at the rink, during their “program-pre-creation” with Marie-France. It was on the comedown from this or that lift, after one or the other moment of gazing too long into each others eyes etcetera. And then of course that one time where they did their choreo to “What’s Love” to warm up, on a different song he now has no recollection of at all. He got no further than the opening position, which was a low point, even for him.

 

But then again, that particular opening position has him stand smack dab behind her, nose buried in her neck and crotch pressed up tight against her ass and she had _leaned_ into it and he thinks, (possibly insanely misreading the situation), that she’d rolled her hips into his a little more forceful and a little more deliberately than usual. A second earlier, he had counted the beats in his head until he had to move but when she did _that_ , he had missed his moment to do so and stayed frozen stiff behind her, holding her tight as if he was holding on to himself. He hadn’t known what to do about the very untimely appearance of a pants-tent-situation other than keep his hands on her and force and wait for his stupid dick to _go back down._ That’s the first time he didn’t say “Pause”. 

 

“Too much,” he had whispered just under her ear and the one thing about Tessa last week that he was and is a hundred percent positive of, is that she shivered and took a deep breath in response. One, because he had _heard_ it and Two, because he had _felt_ it, against him, all over him, coursing through him, like an electric shock. (Needless to say, his dick was in no great shape to do anything but stay right where it was, solid as a rock.) 

 

And okay, maybe he never used “Pause” after this again but he could also swear that Tessa was trying to make him say “Too Much” a lot more now that he had made the switch to use that as a cue. Still, maybe he was being unfair to her and she was trying her best. Maybe he was just fever-dreaming it all up and maybe she was _not_ trying to tease him and slowly drive him insane at all. That’s entirely possible.

 

But using cuing designed to _stop_ them from blurring the lines, to instead _start_ testing the utmost edges of each others patience and self-control is honestly just the kind of fucked-up thing they would do to each other. For whatever goddamn reason.

 

“Great,” JF says, obviously pleased with Scott’s bullshit answer and Tessa’s innocent, gorgeous-green-doe-eyed affirmation and moves on. Which is probably for the better. 

 

Because if they were to address the “Too Much” situation, they would maybe have to stop that particular strategy and however fucked up it is, Scott would literally rather die. Because saying it and seeing how Tess reacts to it every time (eyes going wide, breath stalling just slightly, hands balling into fists…not that he had studied, catalogued and committed every little response to memory already), is addictive to him, like a new personal flavour of crack. One of the many kinds that all fall under the recipe of _Tessa_ , which he’s been hopelessly hooked on for the better part of ten years now.

 

“If you’re ready to work, today I would like to look a bit at your past,” JF says. “I was thinking it might be a good idea to theme these sessions a little bit so that we have a kind of path to follow working through this. I must admit that I don’t usually do _this_ kind of partnership coaching so I asked a colleague of mine who specialises in it. And she gave me a couple of pointers on the work and this one made the most sense for your…special circumstances. Is that okay with you?”

“Sure,” Tessa pipes, ever the obedient people-pleaser that she is, and since Scott doesn’t really have an opinion on _how_ he dies, if he must (and he obviously will if they continue with these Thursdays), he just nods along and gulps down his entire glass of water in one swoop. Moderation, after all, has never been his strong suit. 

 

“Great,” JF smiles and takes out his notepad, prompting Tessa to do the same. And Scott just _knew_ she was going to bring that into this as well: her notes, the ones she takes meticulously for everything pertaining to their comeback. _Awesome_ , now he has to bring his for the future sessions, too. So they can both get it in writing how weird they’re being. _Bring it on, JF._

 

“So the topic today is Adolescence,” Jean François says. “I want to start out by you telling me about your partnership growing up, let’s say from when Tessa was ten to when she was eighteen. And we don’t need to delve into anything in particular yet, I’m looking for the spark-notes version. How did you work together, what was difficult, what was easy. Both in the friendship and where and when the _complications_ came in.”

 

Scott looks at Tessa, trying to gauge if she wants to start or if she wants him to go first and she kind of wobbles her head into an “It’s up to you” and he nods at her, a nudge for her to start because he’s given the last round-up on their relationship the week before and so he believes it’s her turn now. She shrugs her acceptance, takes a deep breath and drinks from her glass of water before sitting up straighter to talk. And since he’s honestly interested in what she has to say about it, he shifts his focus solely to her, the way he learned to so many years ago. It’s ingrained at him at this point: when she speaks, he listens, body and soul, much like when she looks at him, he talks. And no matter what has happened in their life together, the one thing that always remained was that 99% of the time, they heard each other. So that must count for something, right?

 

“Well, when I was ten –and I’ll say it was like that until we moved to Kitchener– we were, like, buddies,” Tessa says, looking at JF and Scott in turn. “We saw each other three or four times a week, mostly in the mornings to drive to the rink and skate together and our families were friends, so we saw a bit of each other on some afternoons and weekends as well. But aside from the on-and-off crush I had on him, nothing was really super complicated yet. Then we both kind of swivelled into puberty and when we got better at skating, we moved away from home to train every day, which basically meant that we became each other’s family.”

 

“At the same time we started fighting occasionally, or maybe not really fighting but butting heads, which looking back is totally normal. I mean, we were kids and getting hormonal and we were really the closest to one another, we saw each other most out of everybody and so it was really inevitable. Eventually our coach Suzanne sat us down and taught us the basics of how to properly communicate and navigate that bickering and also deal with stuff that really hurt, when we’d really made the other person feel bad. So that was a steep learning curve.”

 

Tessa pauses, taxes Scott once, and then goes on. “I guess I internalised a lot back then, from very early on. I’m very sensitive, I think we both are, and I always used to think that every time he was in a bad mood or he was angry or anything, that it was because of me, that I had messed something up and I feel like I spent a good chunk of my early teens trying to just be enough, or like, _good_ enough for him. To make sure he wasn’t mad at me.”

 

Of the many things Scott has done over the years that made Tessa Virtue sad, this ranks up pretty high on the list of what he hates himself for most. And while he also totally always thought that he’d messed up when she was grumpy (because in all their years he had never seen her get truly, honestly _angry_ …at least for skating-related reasons), he had known, even then that her being grumpy at him was in 80% of cases justified. Tessa had felt bad every time he lost his temper and in 80% of cases it wasn’t her fault at all, he’d just always been too hot-headed and impulsive to take a step back and make sure that she knew this, too.

 

“I hate that,” he says sincerely into her pause to take a breath. “I hate that I made you feel that way.”

“You didn’t,” Tessa hurries to say and looks at him intently, always so stubborn in her defence of him. “It was me, it was _my_ insecurities.”

“Maybe, but I could have treated you better,” he argues.

“You were a kid, Scott,” she says and takes his hand where it’s balled up into a fist on his knee.

“So were you,” he says but lets her squeeze his hand open and then squeezes back, rubbing one, two, twenty circles into the soft skin of her hand, staring back at her.

 

Opposite of them, Jean François is scribbling away ferociously on his notepad but neither of them notices that at all. It takes for him to loudly clear his throat until they come out of their bubble and Tessa takes a sip of her water and continues her brief history of the VirtueMoir-baby era.

 

“Well anyway,” she says and clears her throat, taking her hand back discretely (that is to say not discretely at all because she does it so quickly, he checks to make sure there isn’t a spider on his fingers somewhere). “Kitchener was really great in hindsight, we were training and making progress and we really got pretty good and started getting some recognition and got to go on trips and won some competitions or did well in others. And our coaches, Paul and Suzanne, they were really so wonderful and kind and nurturing. They really cared for us. But at a certain point, we had to move on to move up. So we went to Canton. And that’s when the complicated stuff really started, for me at least. It was hard for me to settle in there and get used to the new style of coaching and the new people and the only person I really had for the first eight months was Scott…and I…like…that crush was back so hard, I thought I was going veritably insane. It was all a bit much.”

 

“For me, too,” Scott chimes in without thinking. “Everything was different like _THAT_ ” he claps his hands to signify a big bang, which only goes so far to illustrate the seismic shift in Scott Moir’s young life when he’d discovered that he was falling in actual grown-up-people-love with Tessa ‘Tutu' Virtue, his little-sister-adjacent skating partner. “And it wasn’t this cliché kind of ‘Woah, she grew boobs, suddenly I’m into her’-thing but more like…she was a completely different person. And I know that’s bullshit because she was still Tess, she still _is_ , but she was _new_ , somehow, that part of it was new and that kinda messed me up. Like, I wanted her. And I was seventeen and she was fifteen and I wanted to see her naked? And I felt like such a pervert. And I couldn’t…skate with her the way they wanted me to, ‘cause I was afraid to touch her or to…” He pauses, deliberates, and then thinks _whatever_ and says it anyway. “To pop a boner while I was holding her and I generally had a terrible time with all that. A lot of ‘Too Much’ moments there.”

 

Tessa is remarkably impassive beside him, which is nowadays a pretty good sign that inside, she’s riding on a hurricane but he also wonders if maybe it’s because she knows as well as he does that as much as 17-year-old Scott was afraid of getting hard for her in very inappropriate settings, 28-year-old Scott had been right there just two days earlier. But she would rather be caught dead than acknowledge that fact right now, he can tell by the way her eyes drop to her hands under his scrutiny and so Scott lets off of her and turns his attention back to JF again.

 

“And then you slept together,” he says.

“Eventually,” Scott answers because Tessa is still studying her nail polish (it’s lime green and he thinks the colour is kind of icky but somehow it works for her, which is not even a third of a surprise because _everything_ works on her). “She was eighteen when that happened. The getting there was confusing as hell.”

 

“The getting out of it sucked pretty much, too,” Tessa says, back in the game, going in hard with a kick to the nuts. _Thanks, T._

“Yes, we will get into that whole episode next session,” JF says, looking between them sympathetically but unwavering. “Today is about you two growing up together and especially in the face of those distractions and complications.”

 

“Hey, can I just say something, for the record?” Scott throws in, asking JF as much as he asks Tessa. She nods and predictably enough, he doesn’t wait for JF to say it’s okay, too. “First, I’m sorry, Tess, for the way I acted back then––I know, sorry, gonna talk about it next week, just needed to be said,” Scott tells the round after a chastising look from JF but since he will never stop apologising for the way he acted after her first surgery, they’re all just gonna have to deal with it. “Second, I don’t regret a single day of my childhood or those teenage years with you.” He turns straight to Tess, finding her eyes and pierces them with his, wanting to be completely certain that she hears him, that his voice echoes back from the walls of her soul, so she _knows_ it and won’t ever forget it. “Not a single day. No matter how awkward or painful or overwhelming it got, I wouldn’t trade it in for the world. I wouldn't wanna have had this life with anybody else but you. Hell, I know I wouldn’t _be_ me without you, kiddo.”

 

“Excellent segue!” JF practically yells, making Tessa and Scott almost jump apart and definitely loose what could have easily turned into a ‘Too Much’-moment. “This is _just_ what I want to get into with you right now.”

“That I wouldn’t be me without her?” Scott asks, to clarify and also to say something, anything that isn’t ’T, can we just get out of here and make out in my car?’.

“Precisely,” their mental coach says, a boyish sense of elation vibrant on his face. “It’s got to do with your _actual_ biology, it’s wildly exciting.” 

Scott doesn’t understand a thing and he’s pretty sure that reads through his expression.

 

“What do you know about the frontal cortex,” JF asks, looking at him expectantly. Scott grunts.

“I don’t know, not a fucking lot, _Jeff_ ,” he says in a mix of exasperation and good humour, using JF’s Cirque nickname to make sure it’s understood that he’s joking with the expletive and Tessa snorts an unflattering laugh beside him that makes him feel very accomplished, even when he truly has not a fucking clue about the _frontal cortex._ “I’m an ice dancer who mostly went to Online High School,” he adds, just because.

 

“The frontal cortex is a part of your brain, it sits around here,” Tessa says, putting her hand on the front of her head to illustrate. “Hence the _frontal_ part.”

Scott turns his head to look at her, his expression stony, and shakes his head. “Geez Tess, way to make me look smart on that one. Probably just could’a let _that_ go.”

She giggles and his face softens, even if he would’ve liked to tax her a little bit more for her damn braininess.

“Hey, I did study a bit of psychology,” she defends herself. “You kinda have to know a little about the brain to do that.”

Scott pulls a face and makes a noise that roughly follows the cadence of her last comment and she laughs, smacking him lightly in the arm. “I’m just teasing,” he tells her, breaking into a grin himself.

 

“Yes, anyway. So,” JF says from the sidelines and looks a bit like a pre-school teacher trying to reign in his unruly students when Scott turns to him to signal at least a baseline of attention.

“We’re listening,” he says to their coach whose eyes are straining to roll but Jean’s too professional for that. 

“The frontal cortex,” JF tries in earnest now, “sits, as Tessa said, in the front of your head there and it’s like the switchboard of your brain. You got the amygdala which basically receives all the sensory input you get, what you see, hear, taste, feel, then sort of pre-sorts it and sends on the information to your frontal cortex which then basically tells your body to act on that information. Makes sense so far?”

 

Tessa nods eagerly and Scott has to bite down hard on his lips to not make a stupid joke about her being a teacher’s pet. He knows she wouldn’t appreciate it, she has always been very proud of her academic achievements and he is too, so he doesn’t wanna get down on her for it too hard.

 

“However, the frontal cortex doesn’t fully mature, that is to say it’s not finished growing, until people are in their mid-twenties,” JF tells them and Scott finds himself suddenly interested and diverts his attention to him fully (well, the full 95% available to him, because when Tessa is there, he’s always at least 5% tuned into whatever she is doing). “This means that while the rest of the brain is pretty much done by the time we’re entering adolescence, the frontal cortex, our switchboard, is still learning and growing and making connections up there. That’s basically the reason why teenagers behave like teenagers. In that time, we learn basically to control ourselves, but we also learn which synaptic connections we need in our lives and which one will die off because we don’t. We’re also more susceptive to peer pressure because, being social animals, we really need to belong and we feel rejection and any type of loss, as well as wins and highs, much more intensely than earlier or later in life. Teens are also novelty- and thrill-seeking because their brains want to learn, they yearn to make new connections and figure stuff out. So, why am I telling you all this?”

 

JF looks from Tessa to Scott and doesn’t drag out his pause for effect after that rhetorical question too long before continuing. “It’s because I want you guys to understand that as you were growing up together, your brains were literally growing along with you and wired themselves in parts according to what you learned from and with each other. Your relationship is a fostered, partly coached thing on the surface, right? But it goes deeper than that. This is on a molecular level. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

 

“We grew together?” Tessa tries and Scott thinks that’s pretty much what he is getting from this, too.

 

“Exactly,” JF says. “It’s a normal thing, every child growing up learns from their surroundings and so all our brains go through that process. But the two of you, you’ve spent so much time together learning each other and training together, it’s very much more than likely that your actual brains grew into it as well. It’s like learning and instrument or…skating. The things that you do and do often, your brain makes literal space for in your head, actual grey matter that you can see on an MRI, while the synapses you don’t need atrophy and go through what is called programmed cell-death to be recycled somewhere else. Now, and that’s just a theory and I’m gonna use very blunt imagery for this, but I believe it’s highly possible that you got Tessa and Scott sized balls of grey matter in your brains, dedicated solely to dealing with each other and probably, to make room for that, some other things had to go. Which would make sense with how you’re saying you have such difficulties defining your relationship and that it’s so special. I’d guess that you also feel like you’re connected to each other in a way that’s more intense and different from anybody else, family members included?”

 

“Yeah,” Scott nods, mulling all this new information over in his head, finding that it sounds about as crazy as it sounds entirely correct. “Tessa’s the only person who knows what this is like, what our life is like. She’s the only one who always…”

“…Understood me,” Tessa picks up when he breathes and he glances over at her. 

“We don’t need to speak most of the time, eh?” He asks.

“We don’t finish many sentences when it’s just us,” she agrees. “We always just…know how the other person feels. Even in our biggest fights, we knew, I think. It’s like we’re twins, sometimes.”

“Except not at all,” Scott says, his face scrunching in disgust because _no_ , thinking of Tessa in sibling-terms had been the bane of his existence for years (for reasons) and he doesn't like to even remember it. 

“No, I don’t mean it like that,” Tessa sighs, catching his drift. “Not like I’m your sister but just, you know, what JF said, it makes sense. Like we really actually grew around each other. Like, like…vines.”

 

“Okay, fine but, like, what’s the bottom line here?” Scott asks Tessa as much as he asks JF. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It’s a _thing_ ,” JF says resolutely but not unkind. “I would be careful to label it. The only thing I hope might help you understand this situation is the awareness that it’s understandable, physiologically, biologically how this happened –just by the sheer hours you’ve spent together– but that it’s also very unique, because it goes beyond a sibling-bond or a close-friend-bond since childhood, mainly because of those hours. Take into account that from thirteen and fifteen to way into your twenties, you said you were each others family. In my experience, that’s unprecedented. It’s not _normal._ ”

 

“I knew it, T, we’re freaks,” Scott quips, mostly because he doesn’t really like to think about how much sense everything JF says is making and how little he cares to deal with the consequences of all that.

“Be serious, Scott,” Tessa mutters and absent-mindedly puts her hand on his for him to take, the way they do when they’re slipping out of their comfort zone. 

 

“What I’m hoping gets through is that this is the basic thing you have to take into account when you try to make sense of this relationship and why it’s so complicated. It’s that it happened naturally, on a biological level, that it sort of linked you together, this life that you shared, and that through no ‘fault’ of your own,” he puts the “fault” into air quotes carefully, “you now have this very special thing between you that you can’t expect to work like other relationships in your life or like you see them in movies and so on and so forth. And you can’t expect a label to come that easily, which I know you’re not, because you told me you’ve been struggling with this for years. But I think we _do_ need to define it somehow, or at least get to an approximate. Because like _this_ , it’s just a big cloud of confusion and I think it’s always been.”

 

“So, let me get this straight,” Scott says, trying to recapitulate this new angle of trying to analyse what Tessa and him share. “We should define the relationship while being aware of the fact that it pretty much defies definition from the get-go because we have freak-brains that grew Tessa-and-Scott shaped appendages and stuff like that usually just doesn’t happen and we’re pretty much crippled for life because our actual brains are wired for us to…be together? Or work together or whatever…see each other every day?” 

JF says nothing which is probably a therapist thing and Tessa just shrugs fatalistically.

 

“Sounds awesome,” Scott deadpans and sinks back a little into the couch.

“Well, at least we know now,” Tessa says and Scott feels oddly reminded of that time Tessa told him that the pain in her legs was not splints, like they’d all thought, but Compartment Syndrome. It had been terrible news, but at least they’d known what it was then. It had been their go-to glass-half-full-sentence. But then again, things are different now.

 

“I think I _have_ known that,” he says to her. “I think I knew that _this_ was a part of me. I mean, I know that. Intellectually but also…in my body, if that makes sense? You’re like an extension of me in the best times, I feel like most of the time I know you better than I know myself. That’s not something I have with anybody else.”

“Me too,” Tessa tells him. “But, to me, it does make a difference that it’s actually, you know, _biological_ at this point. It means that we can be a little nicer to ourselves about how we acted growing up, about…the people we’ve hurt along the way. We were doing our best. But maybe, if we really are hard-wired to each other, we never really had hope to be _better_ than the way we were.”

 

Scott doesn’t know what to say to that. Because honestly, where does that leave them now? And he’s not stupid, he knows the implications of free will and choice in the balance here because _if_ they are hard-wired to each other like Tessa said, doesn’t that mean that _they’re_ inevitable and they either get with the program or whither away apart from each other? (Which, by the way, they’d pretty much done in the second half of 2014, only then it had seemed like Scott had done all the withering by himself and Tess had been just peachy on her own.) 

 

But if that’s it, that their literal _brains_ are pretty much designed for them being together, then what are they waiting for? But ah, they are waiting for something, aren’t they? They decided not to go there, not to make it complicated and he still thinks that’s the best course of action for so many reasons. But the not going-there is so complicated for so many other reasons and so it’s goddamn _complicated_ anyway and _either_ way and his head hurts.

 

“Scott, you look like you’re still processing,” JF notes and Scott clears his throat, a little mad at himself for drinking all his water in one go earlier.

“I honestly don’t know what to make of this,” he says. “It could mean so many things.”

“I think it means we should cut ourselves some slack,” Tessa smiles and she seems to have found a whole different set of meaning in this new concept and for some reason for her it appears to be liberating when for him it just adds on more questions to an already impressive pile of those. 

“I think that’s an excellent way to close today’s session,” JF says from somewhere in the periphery as Scott studies his skating partner, yearning to get to her plane of serenity about this whole conversation. “Until next week,” JF continues. “I want you guys to cut yourself some slack. Try and be present with each other and apart and try not to feel guilty or peculiar when your brains are being your brains.”

 

And really, Scott likes the guy a lot, but that just doesn’t make any sense at all. Still, Tessa radiates purpose and almost fucking _enlightenment_ beside him so all he can really do is follow her lead, from agreeing with JF to promising to follow his advice for next week, right out of his office, trying once again to not to loose his eyes to the curve of her neck as she walks ahead completely.

 

“Why are you so chipper about this?” He asks her the second the office door closes behind them, searching her face as she rummages around in her purse. “I’m honestly a little bit terrified.”

“I don’t know,” Tessa shrugs, her features sincere but not bereft for the lack of that particular knowledge and hands him his print-at-home boarding pass for their flight to Toronto they're already moderately late for. “I just…like the thought I guess. Yeah, it’s kind of a weird concept but I like it? Like, I’m proud of us? Our brains grew into our partnership. Isn’t that insane, Scott? But like _good_ insane? We’re partners, that’s a _good_ thing. It’s what’s gonna make us win the Olympics.”

 

 _Ah, right._ _The Olympics._  

 

Scott thinks those Thursdays might become the one hour of his week where he’ll forget that those even exist. And he’s sincerely happy for Tessa that she is happy with the outcome of the session, he really is, but in _his_ mind, all that he takes away is this:

 

 _So, we were literally made for each other. We made_ ourselves _made for each other, our brains have actually shaped themselves to the point where our partnership is literally a part of our DNA. How,_ exactly _, is this gonna help me to not want to make out with you anymore?_

 

He has no idea and damned be all the Tessa on his brain because what good is the whole damn slippery thing if it doesn’t have the capacity to figure _that_ out?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and if you decide to share your thoughts (especially and very much so on the meta-stuff/theory in here), I'm so so so appreciative! Your feedback gives me life and makes me write faster and more ;)
> 
> Thank you!!


	3. ...Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends, new day, new chapter. I don't know if I will be able to deliver these so steadily all the time but right now, I'm on vacation and have a lot of time to write, so it's going okay. It did take me an entire day to write this, so we'll see how I fare with the rest. 
> 
> This was honestly a little hard to churn out but I think I'm okay with how it turned out.  
> Bio knowledge is as always from the book but I also drew from a couple of Couple Therapy worksheets and PsychologyToday.
> 
> The songs referenced are "We Belong" by Pat Benetar and "If God Made You" by Five For Fighting.

Thursday 4:00 PM, June 30th 2016

 

At exactly four pm sharp on a warm late June Thursday afternoon, Tessa and Scott step into JFs office to a friendly hello and are greeted with an actual flip chart set up in front of the decorative fire-place at the far wall, right next to the coffee table separating the two opposing couches. That weird part of Tessa’s brain that is wired to inwardly squeal anytime something remotely school-ish is put before her does just that. Meanwhile the other weird part of her brain that is _apparently_ wired to deal with only Scott notes how he perks up, interested, but less so because of the slightly scholarly nature of the flip chart being there but for the words written on it. He approaches the chart inquisitively as Tessa sits down and prepares her notebook and pen for the session, smiling at JF before they both watch Scott dance around the lecture apparatus for a little while.

 

“Tit for tat,” he eventually reads aloud and turns over his shoulder to JF. “I have a feeling that’s not supposed to be a boob joke.”

Tessa groans but can’t help the chuckle that follows either. Maybe it’s part of her weird Scott-brain-mutation that she still finds his dumb jokes hilarious after all these years. Hopefully. Because if not, she really has the least curated sense of humour she knows of.

“It’s not a boob joke,” confirms JF on a treacherous smile. Tessa can tell he doesn’t want to laugh, but he has to, probably because he likes Scott, that she can tell. (Which is not really surprising because everyone likes Scott, he’s got this thing where two minutes after meeting someone, he already feels like their best friend; the way he engages people, from young skaters, to distant, elderly aunts to a never-ending string of fans that come up to them to chat, he always puts people at ease and in turn, he’s their favourite, two seconds in. Not that she minds, he’s her favourite too, after all, so she understands.)

 

“So is that today’s topic?” Scott asks, pointing at the chart as he finally sits down next to her. “Tit for tat?” (And she wonders if he’s just repeating it for the sake of saying ‘tit’ again, which honestly, would not be surprising. He can be twenty-eight going on nine sometimes.)

“No, today’s session is about _trust_ ,” JF replies easily. “But tit for tat is a strategy in game theory mostly about The Prisoner’s Dilemma game and basically deals with equivalent retaliation, which I want to talk to you about before we dive into some of your darker times to deal with possible trust issues.”

 

JF stands up and walks to the flip chart, pulling a nice, fat black marker that Tessa is itching to get her hands on before the session is over to do some exercises at the board (!!) with. He underlines the letters on the paper and then looks at them which in turn makes Tessa switch into lecture mode and she doesn’t care one bit how Scott throws her a slightly bemused sideway glance. Either way, he does sit up straighter too, and takes out his notebook and pen (which he hadn’t brought last week, she notices with a smirk), so he’s just as prepped to _learn something_ as she is.

 

“Either of you know the Prisoner’s Dilemma game?” JF asks and looks at Tessa and she knows she has heard of it in this or the other class before but she has no clear recollection of it.

“Something about sentences and betraying the other inmate?” She tries, trying hard to remember.

“Pretty much correct, yes,” JF says and she grins, accomplished. “The basic set-up is that two criminals that could tell on each other are in two separate interrogations and have no means of communicating with each other.” Jean draws two little boxes on the flip chart with two little people in them, naming one A and the other one B. “Now, the prosecutors don’t have enough evidence to convict either of them for the big stuff but could get them on lesser charges. So they offer each of them a deal to tell on the other about their crimes committed and they go free. The other choice each prisoner has is of course to say nothing and thereby protect the other person. That leaves us with these three outcomes…” 

 

Turning his back, JF writes on the paper: “If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison.” Then: “If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa).” And lastly, the marker making those delicious squishy-dragging sounds on the chart: “If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge).” 

 

“Got it so far?” He checks back in and Tessa and Scott both nod. “Great! So, the game implies that the greatest reward for each player is obviously to betray the other person and get off scot-free –no pun intended– which means the most rational way to play the game is to betray your opponent. However, because like we said people are social animals, humans have this systemic bias towards cooperative behaviour in games like these, which is why this one and the variant that tit-for-tat works in regards to, is a popular model to analyse real-world human behaviour.”

 

“That’s so fascinating,” Tessa says because she can’t help herself, scooting up closer to the edge of her seat. “We definitely talked about that in class, I think it was in social studies.”

“Awesome, then you probably know the gist of the relevant variant, too?” JF asks her. “The Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma?”

“That’s just when you play the game multiple times, isn’t it? And you always know what the other player did, right? If he told on you or not?”

“Exactly,” JF says and points at her with his marker before writing up the variant on the flip chart (Tessa LOVES this!). “Now, this is where Tit for Tat comes in. See, when you play the game a couple of rounds with mixed results, you have your players be any of the following: T is for Temptation, which is the player that gave up the other while the betrayed one in that scenario is S, for Sucker–“

 

Next to Tessa, Scott grunts out a raspy, throat-y laugh which then splutters over to his lips and he grins at her. “That’s very apropos,” he tells her and she tilts her head at him because she doesn’t follow. “T and S?” He makes a face. “Tessa and Scott? Temptation and Sucker? I don’t know, sounds pretty accurate to me.”

She rolls her eyes on reflex and smacks him in the shoulder and while he moves on and seems nothing but genuinely amused, she instantly and frantically tries to figure out if him saying that means that he’s mad at her somehow, if maybe he thinks that she is being maliciously tempting and playing him for a fool (which she isn’t, she’s just…not quite sure what exactly she is doing at the moment in regards to him).

 

Her mind catches on her imminent self-reflection, remembering the last two weeks of training with Scott and she only catches the gist of what JF eventually continues explaining (if both players betray each other, both get the punishment P of a longer sentence each or if both cooperate and don’t tell on each other, they get the reward R of a shorter sentence each). Tessa watches JF’s hands move animatedly as he introduces Scott to the fascinating world of anthropology via game theory. Meanwhile she doesn’t pay much attention to their mental coach’s words anymore but instead diligently works back through the last couple of days in her recollection, trying to determine if Scott might be angry at her and if so, if he has any right to be. 

 

Okay, yes, there was that whole thing about the cuing which they didn’t talk about but both know is complete bullshit. Because by now it has turned into kind of a sport in itself. Which is basically Tessa taking the openings Scott leaves her to get inappropriately close to him until he says those two magical words “Too Much” that set her entire skin on fire. The first time it had happened during warm up almost two weeks ago, coupled with his veritable _excitement_ pressed against her ass, she had nearly toppled over and it had been a thrill she sought to repeat since, again and again. And mind you, she knows it’s stupid and playing with fire and goes contrary to everything they had once upon a time decided to do and _not do_ in this comeback. They wanted no distractions, yet there she was, on the ice or in his car or wherever, trying to come up with new ways to distract him without making it look like she was trying, thus distracting herself. 

 

They wanted no complications, meaning no sex, so as to not give that whole thing even the chance to mess them up but then again, there they were, working on choreography that involved Scott pretty much melting around her body and they were both equally as fervent in rehearsing those positions again and again and again for the chance of just a little more friction. And Tessa, who flushes red all over, her body practically keening for him, goes through panties like tissues at the rink while Scott is a damn mess nearly half of the time, wringing his fists in frustration and when he gets his hands on her and it’s all too much, he whispers hotly into her neck and rides it out, fingernails digging holes into her skin. So yeah, that’s all going completely against the whole idea of cuing to improve. Which works swell, by the way, in any other aspect of their training.

 

JF really does wonders for them in the athletic avenue of things, with the self-talk and breathing, grounding and preparation exercises. He always says in their Monday and Tuesday sessions that he wants to prepare them to be comfortable in the uncomfortable as athletes. And he delivers every session, knowing just which pictures to paint and which strategies to implement to make them better day by day, gives them the mental tools to be the best versions of themselves out on the ice and, when the time comes again, before competitions. But if JF knew just how comfortable they were being uncomfortably horny for each other without doing anything about it because they had decided they _wouldn’t_ …Tessa isn’t sure if he would be proud or appalled. He’d definitely ask them to deal with it. And that’s precisely what Tessa does not want to do.

 

Because if they deal with it, they would need to stop it and she doesn’t want to. Being close to Scott, in that way particularly, hasn’t felt as easy and as enticing in the last two years and she is honestly just so glad to have that back. She doesn’t want it to change. After Sochi, being physically close to him had very nearly hurt and then it had been awkward and stuffy for the longest time. Now it is…electric again and Tessa wants it, needs it that way, like air. And so no, she decides that Scott isn’t mad at her either, because he could just tell JF about the “Too Much”-nonsense, about how they’re rubbing their privates together like horny teenagers while swearing up and down the road they want to _not_ tear each other apart like animals, but he doesn’t. The second week of “dealing with it” and they’re decidedly both not dealing with _that._

 

So that’s on Scott just as well as it is on her. So he’s not angry at her. He wants it that way, he likes it, too, he _must._ And so, fine, she can play the temptress to his sucker because if he wasn’t so damn ready to be tempted every day, she wouldn’t have much of a title as temptress anyway. 

 

“T?” Scott says then and she startles out of her soul-searching, doing a double-take and staring at him like a fish out of water. “Where are you?”

“Sorry,” she apologises, to him first and then to JF next. “I was thinking about something. I’m sorry, I’m listening.”

 

“I was just summarising the Tit for Tat concept,” JF says, looking patient and if anything a little amused. “When working with the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, tit for tat comes into the mix because if two players play for an unknown number of rounds, the dilemma game really becomes this fascinating tool to see how trusting people are and how they strategise in their relations with other humans. Tit for tat means in this context that each action by the other member is countered with a matching response, competition with competition and cooperation with cooperation. So in the game, the other player will mirror your actions and in turn you will mirror your opponent. If they don’t tell on you, you won’t tell on them, yet if they do, so will you. What I want to try with you later is apply that concept on your biggest conflicts over the years and see where you tit-for-tat-ed and how forgiveness to foster trust comes into play there. Sound good?”

 

“Sounds brain-y,” Scott says. “So, Tessa’s in.”

“Will you stop?” Tessa snaps, only a thin veil of humour draped over her sincere exasperation. She turns to JF. “He always does that, he acts like he’s stupid and I’m so smart but it’s not true. He’s not stupid.”

“Relax, T,” Scott says beside her and touches her arm. “I was just being funny.”

“Yeah, I know, but you really believe that, don’t you?” She challenges, turning back to him. “You think you’re not as smart as me.”

“ _Everyone_ thinks I’m not as smart as you,” he shrugs. “Because it’s true.”

“Just because you didn’t go to college doesn’t mean you’re not smart,” Tessa says vehemently. “You’re emotionally intelligent, socially, you’re great at connecting with people, understanding them, you have a way with words, you can renovate a house with your own two damn hands, you see things most people don’t. You _are_ smart, Scott.” She stares at him with fervour, trying to make him understand, wanting him to know how great she knows he is. “And I don’t like those jokes.”

For a moment Scott’s face is unreadable but then there’s a flicker in his eyes as he leans forward slightly towards her and says under his breath: “Psst, kiddo, you like _all_ of my jokes.”

 

And she really wishes she would not have to laugh the way she does because it really kind of undermines the point she is trying to make.

“Um, guys?” JF says from his end of the room, putting his notepad and pen down (and really, what is _he_ making all these notes for?). “If we could circle back around to the topic at hand?”

“Yeah, sure, sorry,” says Scott sheepishly and removes his hand from Tessa’s arm to her great chagrin. “So our biggest conflicts? The biggest one would be after Tessa’s first surgery, should we start with that?”

“If you want to,” offers JF and Scott nods, winces just a little and then poises himself to _talk._

 

“Well, so you know the basics. Tessa had an overuse injury on her legs and was scheduled for surgery,” Scott says, rehashing the facts. “The months before, we had kind of done a bit of the will-we-won’t-we tango and then the surgery bomb dropped and we, like, clamoured together because we were afraid of what was going to happen. And eventually, we slept together for the first time. And we didn’t talk about it at all, about what it meant or how we were going to handle it. We just…kept doing it until Tessa had to leave for the surgery. And then when she was gone, there were so many things I, personally, couldn’t deal with and I kinda…well, I didn’t speak to her, I didn’t even call. For pretty much two months while she was recovering.”

 

He pauses and looks at her and she nods, signalling that it’s okay to go on. Those wounds aren’t fresh for her. Even if she still doesn’t like to dwell on them much, they don’t bother her any more. “When she came back, we were in a bad place. And I didn’t have the words to explain,” Scott says.

“And a girlfriend,” Tessa adds, which back then, in combination with the fact that there’d been rumours about Scott (well, _Marina_ ) holding auditions for a new skating partner for him, had been the nail in the coffin of their relationship for her at the time.

 

“And a girlfriend,” Scott repeats, sounds as guilty as he always had and turns back to JF. “The thing was that I was really scared and I know that’s not an excuse but I was really fucking terrified of everything while she was gone. About her not coming back and my career ending –because no matter what anybody said at the time, I would never have skated with anybody else– and also about her being mad at me for sleeping with her for some reason and then after a while definitely afraid of her being mad at me for not talking to her about it and then not talking at all and it all kind of snowballed into this…blockade. I couldn’t talk about it, I couldn’t even make sense of it all at the time.”

 

“That’s partly your frontal cortex still learning how to function,” JF tells him and Scott nods, thoughtfully. “But you did talk about it in the end, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, we did,” Scott answers. “Plenty of times.”

“And do either of you feel like there are things you have not said to each other about that time?” JF leans back and taxes them both, waiting patiently while they mull his question over.

 

Scott speaks first: “Apart from saying sorry, which I have but won’t stop being, no.”

“You don’t have to do that anymore,” says Tessa because it’s true. She believes him, she knows he’s sorry and she’s forgiven him, ages ago. They were young and stupid and it wasn’t like she had picked up the phone to tell him to get his head out of his ass either. “Not for my sake.”

“But I need to, for _me_ , Tess,” he says and takes her hand again. “I fucked up.”

She holds on to him, smiles slightly and lets him have it. Heaven knows she could use some of that humility in regards to her more recent mess-ups.

 

“Now, is there a conflict in your lives that you feel you haven’t quite talked through, yet?” JF asks and Tessa goes rigid. Which means _yes_ and also _please let’s not get into this now._ Scott looks at her, his face saying something on the lines of “We gotta.” So he does.

 

“Well, yeah,” he begins. “I think everything around Sochi and after is still a little raw, isn’t it?” He sounds tentative, almost afraid and Tessa knows the feeling. They’re poking the bear and she doesn’t know if she wants to do that quite yet.

“That was a difficult time,” she says, well aware that she’s being of little help.

“How so?” JF asks. (Because that’s obviously his _job._ She still wishes he wouldn’t.)

“Um, well, so going into the Games, Tess believed that Marina had kind of dropped us and I wouldn’t believe her or at least I thought we were going to be good enough on our own to win anyway. But we didn’t necessarily have the programs, like…they weren’t good enough,” Scott says pensively. “I mean, the Short was great and we really loved that but we weren’t happy with the Free and especially by the end Marina was no help at all anymore and we just…we felt betrayed, I guess, and I felt stupid that I hadn’t believed Tessa and I bet she was angry at me for not believing her and then…you know, the Silver happened and it stung a little more than I think we thought it would. But it all would’ve been alright I think except…you know how I said I broke up with my girlfriend before Sochi?”

 

JF nods and Tessa re-fastens her inner armour. Here comes the part she would rather skip.

“I kinda broke up with her for Tessa,” Scott says. “Or at least in my mind, that’s what I did. I didn’t really tell Tess about it. But you know, we’d had that thing during Carmen and we knew we were going to probably retire after Sochi so in my head, I was like: Okay, so you always held back on trying something for real with Tessa because you were skating together and there were always those limits and those boundaries on that and I thought, well, so what if after this, we could, like, give that a go? And in Sochi, I mean, we were really good there, the two of us, together. There was potential, or at least I thought there was. That’s where I was at anyway. But T wasn’t. Or at least not in the way that I was. I wanted to get away from the sport after, she just wanted to get away _period_ , which included me. And that kinda sucked for me, obviously. So we fought.”

 

“I don’t know, I feel like he just kinda bulldozed me with that and we were barely even home, you know?” Tessa says to JF because it’s difficult looking at Scott right now. Intellectually, she knows that she is being defensive and snappy because she feels guilty but that doesn’t mean that she is in any position to stop herself. “Like, everything was still so fresh and painful and we knew we were going to leave Canton after almost ten years and our competitive career was likely over and even if I wanted other things at that point, it was still my whole life that was changing and I just wasn’t…I wasn’t in the headspace for any of it when Scott acted like ‘Of course we’re gonna try and be a thing now’, like the next thing we were naturally gonna do minutes after retiring was like, get married and buy a house and that just wasn’t–”

 

“For the record, I never said a damn thing about getting married,” Scott cuts in. “I proposed the idea of maybe trying something for real, that was _it._ ”

“You said ‘So are we gonna do this or not’ after kissing me in your parents backyard like you wanted to move into the _barn_ ,” Tessa argues and just like that she’s forgotten all about JF, therapy, the comeback and her manners. 

 

“And you said ‘Nope, sorry’ and _left_ ,” Scott says, instantly agitated and turns his whole body towards her, arching his spine forward to get further in her face.

“I did _not_ ,” she protests.

“Not in those exact words but that’s what it felt like,” he tells her adamantly. “Like, I’d already lost pretty much everything that held my life together at that point and then you just…you just said _thanks for the memories_ and off you went.”

 

“You sure got over it quickly enough,” Tessa says and doesn’t mean to sound as judgemental as she does but here they are. “When did you start seeing Kaitlyn? That same week or did you wait three more days? And then you rubbed her in my face for months. _Months,_ Scott.”

“Well, _you_ hooked up with Ryan, the Douche, and made sure the exact five paparazzi that _exist_ in Canada knew about it just so I’d see,” Scott huffs (and he’s got her there).

 

“You were taking Kaitlyn _everywhere_!” Tessa says still, because it hadn’t been like Scott left her much of a choice, being all loved up very loudly and very hurriedly with someone who wasn’t her.

“I would have taken _you_ everywhere,” he says exasperatedly. “You didn’t want that.”

“I wanted _time_ ,” she tells him.

“I wanted _you_ ,” he says. “Before Kaitlyn, I wanted to be with you.”

“Well, I wanted to be with _you_ all through Carmen but instead of stopping whatever the hell it was you were doing with Cassandra to figure us out, you dropped _me_ ,” she retaliates, childishly (and unwisely, as she realises the second she closes her mouth and his drops open…because he hadn’t known that bit yet).

 

“You…you wanted…,” he mumbles dimly and she feels his eyes on her as her head snaps down to study the fashionable holes in her jeans. “Tessa, look at me.”

And because “Look at me” is an on-ice cue that her body follows by itself, she does look up, finding his eyes searching and puzzled. He studies her like something is new in her face, like she suddenly grew another head or two. But he says nothing and so she doesn’t either. She can’t breathe, really. This is exactly why she didn’t want to talk about this stuff. They need about another ten years to have enough distance to not blow up over it. 

 

“Uh, so, um, would you two like to be alone for a moment?” JF asks from somewhere in the periphery and Tessa suddenly remembers that at a certain point there had been a third person involved in this conversation. 

“No,” Tessa says like a shot. _Heavens, no, please don’t leave us alone right now._  

 

Scott on his end of the couch, must’ve swallowed his tongue somewhere in between because he doesn’t say anything at all anymore. He just stares at her as if he was a cow and she was a train rattling by. Tessa can’t deal with that right now, so instead she nods at JF to _please, please, please_ go on.

“Then I would just like to point out that what each of you described happening in regards to your personal relationship after Sochi is pretty much textbook Tit-for-Tat,” JF says (which, okay, sounds fair). “But that’s great because now I can tell you to _avoid_ that in the future.”

 

Tessa turns around fully to him. And even if she’s still pretty occupied trying to gauge what Scott is doing from the corner of her eye, she is also very much ready to move on from this moment. 

“Starting with Scott retaliating for your rejection of his suggestion of getting together by supposedly flaunting a new relationship in your face, to you then doing the same with this other man, Ryan? To this conflict right now, you are matching competition with competition and that’s no good for a trusting environment.”

“But I _do_ trust Scott,” Tessa says stubbornly. “I’d trust him with my life.”

“But do you trust him with the truth?” JF challenges, even-voiced and calm, which is positively infuriating. “Do you trust him enough to tell him right now exactly how and what you’re feeling?” 

 

And this shuts her up well and good. Because _duh_ , no she doesn’t. Because they’re not ready, she’s not ready and she doesn’t know that if she tells Scott exactly everything she’s feeling they’ll know what to do with it, anyway. 

“I don’t think we need to tell each other every little thing,” she says, tight-lipped and quiet and knows that she sounds like a child. 

 

“Certainly not,” JF nods. “But the important things. And to be able to do that, I’d like you to be mindful about the Tit-for-Tat-ing. Any human relationship can at times feel like that Prisoner’s Dilemma game. ‘Cause in the end of it all, we act alone and we don’t know what the other person thinks and feels exactly and is going to do at any given moment, even with as close as the two of you are. It takes a great deal of trust to know that what happens in that other room, so to speak, will be in your best interest. So in so far the logical consequence from Tit-for-Tat, which is ‘If I treat you well, you’ll treat me well’ works but the “if” here is imperative and that costs trust in spades. You need to be sure that whenever you mess up, the other person will be willing to forgive you, otherwise you cannot trust. So there is this concept of Forgiving Tit for Tat, which I would like you to try and implement.” 

 

“I don’t know what any of this means, to be honest,” says Scott, having awoken from his trance apparently and sounds tired and older than his years.

“Have you ever heard of the Positive Attribution theory?” JF asks and Tessa nods. Once upon a time they’d been told to practice that a little more diligently. “That’s pretty much what Forgiving Tit for Tat is. So everything that goes right, is because of your hard work together and who you are as people and everything that goes wrong is because of external circumstances.”

“So it was external circumstances that we couldn’t get our timing right since Carmen? Or since fucking _Umbrellas_?” Scott asks and if possible sounds even more tired than before.

“Everything happens for reasons, Scott. No behaviour, no choice happens in a vacuum,” JF says patiently. Judging by his tone he understands just as well as Tessa that Scott is seconds from tapping out of the session and so he changes his approach almost too fast for Tessa to process. 

 

“So the question is, how do we keep building on that trust that is there between you two? And I’m not going to make you do trust-falls because I know you do that on the ice anyway,” JF says. “But keeping in mind the forgiving, I want you to search through your music and find a song to play for the other that surmises what you feel for each other right now, maybe not necessarily after this argument but in general. We’re going to slowly move our way to emotional honesty, here.” 

 

And because it’s about music and Scott loves music, he’s now back in the game, sitting up straighter and wobbling his head into almost a nod. 

 

She can see the wheels turning in his head already and she thinks he hasn’t gotten his phone out this fast in weeks. As for Tessa, her heart beats out of rhythm because, yes, she does have a _playlist_ …but each and every one of those songs reveal just a little bit too much and there’s generally way too much Taylor Swift on it and how is she going to find something that is honest without saying “I love you so much, oh my God, how am I even functioning?!”.

So instead of getting her phone out too, she just watches Scott scroll through his and oh, how the tables have turned, because half a minute later he looks up like that annoying student in class that has finished the test first and wants people to know.

“What?” He asks when she keeps staring at him. “I have a lot of songs that remind me of you.“ ( _Too much_ , she wants to say.) “Why aren’t you looking through your music?” He nudges her leg with his. “Do the task, T.”

 

She can’t help but chuckle, very much despite herself, and takes out her phone to scroll through her Spotify, because _fine._ She’s careful to not let him catch too much of the playlist as he’s craning his neck, trying to snoop. When she settles on a song eventually, she’s pretty sure that it’s still saying a bit too much but, well, they’re in therapy and that’s the assignment, so she can at least try to be productive and contribute. “Okay,” she says and looks up. 

 

In the meantime JF has put out a little bluetooth box on the table between them and asks them both to show him their phones so he can cue the songs up. “Who wants to go first?”

“You can play mine first,” Tessa offers because she just wants it to be over and she strategises that if she goes first, they’ll spend a lot more time discussing Scott’s because it’ll be second.

 

And just like that her song starts and Scott groans at the first two bars because the eighties sound is apparent. “He doesn’t like my oldies,” Tessa says to JF but he just holds up his hand, gesturing at them to listen. And that’s instantly extremely uncomfortable because _damn,_ those lyrics really are a bit loud in general. She had half forgotten them before choosing and now she almost wants to jump up and throw the box out of the window or put on Frère Jaques instead. But alas, no dice. The song is on and now they all have to sit through that whole mess.

 

_Many times I tried to tell you_

_Many times I cried alone_

_Always I'm surprised how well you cut my feelings to the bone_

_Don't want to leave you really_

_I've invested too much time to give you up that easy_

_To the doubts that complicate your mind_

 

_We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder_

_We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under_

_Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better_

_We belong, we belong, we belong together_

 

Scott just watches her, listening and she can’t bare to look back at him. (But it’s very strange that her legs kind of tap the rhythm on their own accord because she does absolutely love that song? It’s a very strange three minutes, that’s for sure.)

 

_Maybe it's a sign of weakness when I don't know what to say_

_Maybe I just wouldn't know what to do with my strength anyway_

_Have we become a habit? Do we distort the facts?_

_Now there's no looking forward_

_Now there's no turning back_

_When you say_

 

_We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder_

_We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under_

_Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better_

_We belong, we belong, we belong together_

 

_Close your eyes and try to sleep now_

_Close your eyes and try to dream_

_Clear your mind and do your best to try and wash the palette clean_

_We can't begin to know it, how much we really care_

_I hear your voice inside me, I see your face everywhere_

 

Two more choruses and the song fades out with a children’s choir harping on about belonging together and Tessa has counted every wrinkle on her fingers.

“Tess,” says Scott beside her, softly like falling snow and she wants to scream. This was a _terrible_ idea.

 

“We’re not going to discuss this,” JF says and Tessa wants to _kiss_ him. “In true figure skating fashion, we’re gonna let the music speak for itself.” _Thank the lord._ “So, let’s hear what Scott thinks.”

 

And Tessa fully expects a country song but what blares through the speaker is country-adjacent at best and entirely unfamiliar to her.

“He’s a hockey fan, played at some American NHL halftimes,” supplies Scott, explaining how _he_ knows a song like _that_ , probably noting her confused expression. And then the guy is already singing.

 

_Hey kid_

_Your time has come to change_

_Though I need you more than I've needed anyone in any way tonight_

_Hey kid, I know it won't be long_

_The captain's calling, come to see you back where we belong_

_Something inside me is breaking_

_Something inside says there's somewhere better than this_

 

_Sunset sailing on April skies_

_Bloodshot fire clouds in her eyes_

_I can't say what I might believe_

_But if God made you he's in love with me_

 

 _Okay._ And now it’s her turn to look at Scott, expecting him to look away in turn this time but instead, he gazes back at her as if he’s been waiting for it. And now that she’s made that connection, she can’t break it. 

 

_Hey kid_

_Do wishes count at all_

_Can you give me a sign, give me anything I won't tell a soul you told_

_Hey kid, will you hold me when I sleep_

_Will you find me when the tide decides that I got to leave_

_Now something inside me is breaking_

_But something inside says there's somewhere better than this_

 

_Sunset sailing on April skies_

_Bloodshot fire clouds in her eyes_

_I can't say what I might believe_

_But if God made you he's in love with me_

 

_Something inside me is breaking_

_But something inside says there's somewhere better than this, my love_

 

Softly, the song laps on, catching three more times on the wailing chorus and all that time, Scott keeps watching her, keeps talking with his eyes, along with the music and she hadn’t known what she has signed up for with these sessions until precisely this moment. They’re gonna have to _deal_ with this. Before long, they’re gonna have to. Because if he feels like this and she feels like that, well, then it’s pretty clear they won’t be able to sit on it for the next two years, cues and agreements be damned. 

 

When the song ends, there’s a loaded silence for a moment and they’re both elevated, soaring somewhere above the couch. Two more seconds and something is going to explode, which both of them feel, so it’s with zero preparation but complete synchronicity anyway that they say on the same breath: “Too Much” and turn to JF simultaneously for help.

 

He looks at them as if they’re zoo animals. 

 

“Okay, good,” Jean François says finally and even _his_ voice sounds so strangled, that he has to clear his throat. “Good progress for today. I’d say probably…process this for a while and then–”

“We’ve gotta be at the rink in half an hour,” says Tessa, business-like and aiming hard for conversationally because really, _too much._ “Grand Prix assignments are out and we gotta plan that through with Marie and Patch.”

“Absolutely,” JF smiles and nods quickly. (And she does get the sense that he hasn’t known what he’d signed up for with the two of them either until now.) “Well, then, I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

“Yeah, thanks, Jeff,” says Scott, sounding equal parts weary and exhausted. 

 

Tessa and Scott walk out of their mental prep coach’s office a good arms length apart, which is a feat considering they step out of the door at the same time and they’re almost at the end of the hallway when Scott calls her name and she turns around to where he’s fallen behind.

 

“Can you just get here for a second,” he says and she trods back to him, half-dread, half-automatism. She looks up at him when she is in touching distance and he says nothing, just pulls her against his frame into one of their hugs and honestly, she’s never needed it to steady her quite like she does right now. She slots his face into his neck like she always does and breathes in the way he breathes _her_ in. She doesn’t know how long they stand there, she doesn’t even notice how JF peaks out of his door, shakes his head deftly and then closes it very quietly again. She only knows Scott is there and his arms are strong and steady and somehow, they will figure this out. Just not quite today.

 

After all, they have a damn competitive comeback to get through and they’re not twenty anymore. (Nope, not twenty, with now fully formed frontal cortexes and the resolve to not tit-for-tat anymore and to maybe, just maybe be more honest with each other, one song at a time.) Surely, they’re gonna be alright. Eventually.

 

They have to be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...what are your meta thoughts and not meta thoughts? Very excited for your input :) Thank you so much for every single comment, they mean the world! (Especially the ones where I get a basic idea if I'm giving a basic idea about all the biology and psychology stuff, because that's really, really above my pay-grade usually.) 
> 
> Thank you all! <3


	4. ...Competition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again with some more of those folks' bullshit!  
> This chapter basically wrote itself and it's a little shorter and a liiiiittle bit more on the silly side but I am dedicated to fully believing that something like this could've happened like that or a little like it.
> 
> Thank you for everyone who left me their thoughts so far, I appreciate every single line, always!
> 
> So now, let's jump in, shall we?

Thursday 4:15 PM, July 7th 2016

 

Scott isn’t really listening. The subject of today’s lesson is _Competition_ and JF has been monologuing for a good five minutes about feeding off each others positive energy but Scott can’t find that positive energy in himself to save his life. Truth be told this comeback is kicking his ass in any and every possible conceivable way. He’s exhausted half of the time from gym and the rink and trying to get back in shape (and holy smokes, he’s kicking himself inwardly for every beer too many he’s had over the last two years, which God knows have been _way_ too many) and the other half of it, he is exhausted from whatever it is him and Tessa are doing. 

 

After last week’s session, he’d hoped, actually honestly _hoped_ , that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Because however trite it was that Tess would pick a cheesy 80s song to tell him about her feelings, it had literally been “We Belong”. So that had to mean something, right? But apparently, she hadn’t listened to it half as well as he did, especially about the “Whatever we deny or embrace”-part. Because Tessa was not embracing _anything_ (well, except for him, on the ice, the two of them falling seamlessly back into that old pattern of theirs where they would be all over each other as soon as they were skating, lingering looks and squeezing hands and, yeah, his lips on her skin whenever he could get away with it).

 

But apart from that, there’d been nothing. No acknowledgement of even the songs, no further discussion about any and all revelations that session had unearthed. Not the fact that, oh yeah, he was apparently still very much pissed at her for leaving him out in the cold after Sochi (Positive Attribution be damned, because those had not been _external circumstances_ , that’d been Tess alright, in all her thick-headed glory) or the fact that she’d been where he was after Sochi during the Carmen season. Which had been a curve-ball, if he’s ever seen one. He remembers that moment from last time crystal clear still because he had played it back to himself a couple of times any given waking hour since it had happened. He’d tapped out right then and there, just trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he hadn’t seen it back then, hadn’t _felt_ it.

 

Because while they’d been messing around, going behind people’s backs (Marina, their friends and families, Skate Canada and Cassandra, who he’d been _casually_ seeing back then, so it wasn’t like it was 100% cheating but still probably a little over 50%, anyway) and generally being pretty selfish about wanting things (namely to spend as much time veritably inside of and wrapped around each other), he hadn’t felt like Tessa wanted anything other from him than his hands on her. He’d had no idea that what she had wanted back then was _more._ Because _he’d_ wanted more, that much is a given. And if he had known…god dammit, if he _had_ known, his life would be so different now. He seriously isn’t even sure if he would slave himself away to eradicate that very unfortunate beer gut he’d fostered, isn’t sure they would be coming back at all. 

 

Honestly, when he imagines what his life would be like if they’d had that conversation back then, it’s so completely different. The one conversation that would have gone: “Oh, by the way Scott, I’d really like to be with you, romantic stylez” (he’s been watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine to dim the agony of re-learning how to twizzle right) and then him replying: “Great coincidence because I’ve been in love with you for about seven years and I really think we should get married by next week, or next month at the latest”. If that had happened, he doesn’t know if they would even be in this therapists office (maybe they’d be in a different one but that’s another story). All he knows is, _had_ it happened, Tessa and him would have rings on their hands now, she’d have a nice hyphenated  last name and potentially a baby with a Moir-nose and definitely a dog. 

 

Now, the next logical thought in his head, pondering that whole thing, had obviously been: _So it didn’t happen then because I never believed you could want me like that and you didn’t care to tell me but now we’ve listened to those songs and mine says ‘There’s gotta be somewhere better than this’ and your says ‘I see your face everywhere’ and hello?! Isn’t_ this _our freaking cue, ‘_ Too Much _’ be damned to all hells?_

 

But nothing. Tessa did _nothing._ It had taken her the exact time getting to the rink to talk about the GP assignments with Marie and Patch to seemingly forget everything that had happened in the hour before. Like a snap, she’d gone back to easy, breezy Tee-sy and it was the bane of his existence in times like those that he was so very, very painfully in tune with her. Because no matter how gutsy he would’ve felt maybe breeching the topic himself (and he was nearly _thirty_ , god fucking dammit, he should really be able to learn how to do that by now), all his confidence had shrivelled in the face of her “Don’t talk to me about this, please”-vibes. And so he hadn’t. 

 

He’d just waited the following seven days for her to maybe stop being this difficult but that was like waiting for a solid stone wall to grow legs and dance the Macarena. Because knowing her almost twenty years, he knew that she was about the most stubborn person he could think of and if Tessa didn’t want to do something, it simply wouldn’t be done. So here they were, Temptation and Sucker, in the same place they had been for the last ten years. (And mind you, he doesn’t fail to see just how fucked up that is. Because it was one thing to be hopelessly into someone who wasn’t into you but Tessa _is_ into him. He knows it, she knows it, their families know it, JF _definitely_ knows it and he’s pretty sure all of Canada knows it, too.) He could move on if she doesn’t want to love him, maybe. But she does. So it’s all _very_ confusing and making very little sense all in all. 

 

Oh, and by the way, screw leaving Cassandra for her. He’d left _Kaitlyn_ for her, just shy of ten months ago, even if they’d left out that fact in that last discussion and would, probably, for another five years or so given their timing. Kaitlyn, who’d singlehandedly made him grow-up because she had _treated_ him like a grown-up, not taking any of his shit (save for him getting drunk like an idiot every other day for pretty much the first half year of their relationship). Kaitlyn had been fucking great. But she hadn’t been Tessa. And isn’t that what his whole life revolves around. Everything is fucking great but nothing is _Tessa_ except for Tessa. Jesus Christ, is he ever fucked. 

 

“So, do you feel like there are areas where you’re competing with _each other_?” JF asks from the other side of the galaxy and Scott suddenly realises that he has not heard a single word that’s been said in the last five minutes. 

“We used to compete about skating,” Tessa says beside him and looks like a fond aunt reminiscing. “But that was when we were little.”

“Yeah, now we compete about _other_ things,” Scott says vaguely, thinking about ‘ _Too Much_ ’ and Tessa knows it because she draws in that sharp breath that means ‘Shut up, Scott’.

Which is another damn thing. She doesn’t want to let _that_ go, those  cuing shenanigans. Because if he hadn’t been sure at the start of it if what she was doing was on purpose, that had changed pretty soon. No, Tessa, she lives for him saying that cue, _lives_ to see him barely keep from putting her flat on the ice and ripping off her damn tight leggings with his teeth. _And so no, please don’t mention this to JF, let’s just keep having those secrets that we’re too dysfunctional to even acknowledge to each other._

 

“Like what things?” JF asks because he was bound to and Scott scrambles for something that makes sense and still isn’t the full truth at the same time. 

“Little things, silly things,” Tessa says routinely and he hates her a little bit. “Nothing important.”

JF eyes them suspiciously but lets it go and Scott can tell he is itching to make one of his little notes on that notepad of his. As if Scott didn’t know that most of those notes are probably some smart way to say “The fuck, guys?” anyway. He really needs to grab a beer with JF one of these days and get his non-therapist assessment of the situation, if only to learn that he, Scott, isn’t the only person in the room completely at a loss for what to make of it all. 

 

“Well, generally,” JF begins, moving on, “we should try to eradicate any competition between you two. And we can go a bit with what we talked about Monday and Tuesday about the ‘Comfortable in the Uncomfortable’, just not in regards to the athletic side of things but the personal one.”

“So…visualise?” Tessa guesses.

“Yes and no,” JF replies nebulously. “It’s not so much visualising but working in metaphors, physical ones at that. Have you ever arm-wrestled each other?”

And Scott can’t help but laugh out loud.

 

“When we were twelve, I think,” he huffs. “But it would be hardly fair now, I got Tessa down in seconds.”  
“Oh, you wanna bet on that, Moir?” She asks him, peeved, and he enjoys it more than he should. He turns over to look at her and there’s that glimmer in her eyes he adores so much. That competitive, bulldog-ish determination that sets his skin alight and makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in anticipation. 

“You wanna go, we can _go._ ” She says, the challenge in her whole demeanour and she slips off the couch with little grace (really the klutz that she is when not on the ice) and props her elbow on the coffee-table, kneeling on the floor before him. 

 

(And the way she looks up at him from down there brings back so many memories that have him unfortunately half-hard in seconds, so he quickly joins her on the floor before JF sees and puts them into an honest to God intervention).

 

Scott positions himself opposite of her, steadies his elbow and takes the hand she holds out for him, gritting her teeth already. 

“Guys,” JF says, “great that you’re ready. But before you go, I’d like for you to keep your mind working. Please note what the competition is doing to you, how you’re feeling in the situation, what changes in the process.”

“Sure, Jeff,” Scott says, not taking his eyes off of Tessa, who has graduated to glaring at him, a wicked smirk on her lips.

“Absolutely,” she says, her tone clipped and without taking her eyes off of Scott either.

 

“Great,” JF says encouragingly. “Then… _go._ ”

 

And Tessa doesn’t pull her punches at all. Also, holy crap, has she been bench-pressing? And also, well _duh._ She’d been on magazine covers and getting photographed in Bikinis (which had been weakening in a wholly different sense when he’d first seen those pictures) while he’d been drinking away his competition winner’s money. Of course she’s in great shape. Scott had resolved a millisecond before starting that he was going to go easy on her but he quickly learns that he simply can’t, because she’s going for it and honestly, it’s a little troubling how strong she is. He feels immediately humbled and gives some more pressure back to her. She grins at him, noticing how his tendons work overtime in the face of her prowess and he wonders why he’s surprised. She’d always been so much stronger than him. And she pushes on. He hates her and he _loves_ her and there, at the back of his conscience is something that pulls at him, something ugly that smells like testosterone and yells ‘beat her’, ‘ _show_ her’.

 

Honestly, he’s never had any shame in being the more emotional one in the partnership, the more moved by sentimental things, the feeler to her thinker. Had given no thought to the masculine or feminine attributes that fell evenly around their character traits, but this…this is bruising his sense of manhood. It’s surprising how fast he reverts back to nine years old and will not have this _girl_ , this small, gracefully resolved, ferocious, scary, astonishing little creature _beat_ him. He won’t. And so he pushes back. And ah, there goes the first centimetre towards her and the smile on her face dies, quickly replaced with a snarl as she pushes him back and goes further into his side, putting her back into it.

 

Her eyes glimmer dangerously as she licks her lips and then bites down hard on the bottom one and yeah, _half-hard_ is a thing of the past. He’s rock solid, his dick straining against the stretched denim of his jeans and he has to yell at his blood to stay in his damn muscles and how messed up is it, that he wants to fuck her now even more than when she’s all dainty and fragile-looking?  (Also, truth be told, he wants _her_ to fuck _him_ , because _damn._ ) He grunts, half in frustration at his traitor body and half in strain from trying to keep up with her and he flexes his arm, sitting up straighter trying to match her strength. Tessa positively bares her teeth, like a rabid animal, and fuck absolutely _everything_ , he wants her so badly he could scream. 

 

He has half a mind to let her win just to see her face break into smug, self-satisfied triumph but he can’t abide that and because he wants to win really urgently, he comes up with a plan. (Technically, it might be cheating a little bit but damn if Tessa doesn’t know exactly what her whole warrior princess shtick is doing to him either.) 

 

Feeling very clever, he leans forward as far as the angle of their wrestling arms allows and licks his own lips, slowly, tantalisingly, and gazes at her, pulling out _the angry smoulder_ (trademark S. Moir) and undresses her ever so slowly with his eyes. He’s thinking every filthy word in the book right at her and hopes she hears them all. And maybe she does because next, her mouth drops open on a gasp and he grins at her wickedly, visualising in perfect clarity how he would scoop her into his arms and put her legs on either side of his waist, push her panties to the side under that flowery sundress she is wearing and rut into her while biting her neck bloody and fuck her against that far wall to mutual destruction. 

 

Tessa grunts, low and lewd and the way she looks at him could power an entire city. There’s a sizzle between them, a buzzing, static energy, as they strain to match vigour with fury and neither of them budges. He’s sweating now and if possible, his erection grows even further and with what little rational brain capacity he has left, he hopes that JF can’t see from his higher vantage point of the couch. But then that last bit of mindfulness goes straight out of the window when Tessa shifts her fingers on his hand ever so slightly and digs her nails into his skin. Scott could swear the jolt that sends through him makes a beeline for his junk, crashing into him like a freight train and he nearly well moans. 

 

 _Fuck this. But please, please, please don’t stop._  

 

He rocks forward, squeezes her hand so she knows he likes it (“ _Yeah, that’s right, just like that, babe”_ , his wanton mind drawls helplessly, leaving no room for much else) and Tessa digs in her nails even harder, her own breath stalling and then coming out in a huff. She wants him, her eyes are so dark with it they’re turning from pale green to a startling emerald and that’s so exhilarating, he is literal seconds away from just pulling her onto his lap, forgetting completely where they are and who he is. 

 

“Okay, that’s enough! Time out.” Comes a croak from the couch and Tessa and Scott freeze as if they were doused with cold water, the tension holding, then breaking into shivers over him. They unlock their grips and turn their heads to their mental coach who is, surprisingly, still there. “See!” JF says, waving his arms at them. “See?!”

 

And no, they really don’t.

 

“You’re bringing sex into this,” JF says, as if they should know that and feel appropriately ashamed about it. “If you get into competition mode with each other, you’re making it about _sex_.”

“No, we’re not,” says Tessa quickly and Scott’s eyes flicker over to her flushed cheeks and chest and if that wasn’t a dead giveaway, it would be the tremor in her voice. 

“ _Tessa Virtue_ ,” says JF appraisingly and sounds _exactly_ like her mother. So much so that Scott has to stifle a laugh, which then turns into an ugly grunt, which then turns into bafflement, as Scott _understands._

 

“You know about the _Too Much_ -thing,” he mutters and wonders why that took him so long to figure out. Because Scott is pretty sure that Tess and him have done about every couple’s therapy exercise in the book at one point or another and they never had to _arm-wrestle_ before. So clearly, JF played them and played them good. Their therapist just wanted to have proof of their weirdness and they’d delivered, like stupid lab monkeys.

“Yeah,” JF replies dry as a bone. “I know about the _Too Much_ -thing. Had a nice long chat with Marie-France the other day after she asked me if I’d given you an intimacy assignment.” A pause and then he adds, because apparently he thinks he hasn’t been clear enough: “She said you were quote-unquote ‘dry-humping’ each other and you were saying ‘too much’ all the time.”

Now, Tessa and Scott really do look appropriately ashamed, which is probably a pretty fitting style for them as they cower on the floor between the coffee table and the couch. _Busted._ And also, how enlightening that apparently their integrated sports service team really and honestly _does_ talk to each other about them. Even if that's a conversation, the one between JF and Marie-France about Tess' and his 'dry-humping', that Scott would never ever (ever, ever) want to be a fly on the wall for.

 

“And it’s absolutely no surprise that you’re confused and that this is complicated for you,” JF continues and sounds almost riveted. “If you’re actively turning your sexual tension or attraction into a competition, what do you expect will be the outcome of that? You’re both powder kegs with arms playing with matches. It’s non-sensical behaviour. It’s _dangerous_ behaviour if you want to get through this comeback without the added stress of this sort-of complication. _This_ is what is making it hard. The fact that you can’t separate going toe-to-toe about things –and people and partners go toe-to-toe about stuff all the time, that’s _normal_ – from one-upping the other in a sexual capacity. And that is _not normal_ for what you are trying to achieve here.”

 

Silence, followed by more silence (while Scott can’t really look at Tessa and feels like an ass sitting on the floor and very much on the spot like that), ends up with JF going off some more again. And it would be kind of funny if Scott didn’t feel like a called-out schoolboy who burnt down the churchyard hedge playing with fire.

“Bottom line is you either have to confront this tension or stop with this behaviour or this isn’t going to be healthy at all,” JF trumpets emphatically, pointing at them. “So? Do you want to confront this tension?”

 

Scott looks at Tessa, can’t help it, really and hopes to the high heavens that she will say something, anything. But she just sits there, unmoving, studying the lines in the wood of the table as if it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and so Scott can only look back helplessly at JF who almost, _almost_ shrugs in exasperation. 

“Okay, well then let’s get up,” JF says. “We’re gonna do an _anti_ -intimacy exercise now.”

 

The first time Tessa looks at Scott again after their arm-wrestle match and subsequent call-out, is when JF has them stand in front of the fake fire place opposite each other and tells them to look at each others eyes. Tessa meets Scott’s with a hardness around the corners that is utterly betraying the effort it takes to conceal everything going on in her head right now. In moments like this, she feels like a hummer to him and he wishes he could just pry her open and crack her shell to get to what’s good beneath. _Tell me all your secrets, Tessa, tell me_ everything.

“Scott, I want you to put your hands on her, wherever you like,” JF instructs evenly. “Tessa, I want you to do the same.”

 

She hesitates but in the end, her hands are on him first, one going flat on his chest, approximately where his heart is, the other one resting lightly on his waist. He touches her back on reflex, one hand landing on her waist in turn, the other one curling around hers where it rests over his heart. He feels like swaying, like dancing with her, it’s _that_ natural if they stand like this, if he has her in his arms just so. 

 

“Now, I want you to stay still and leave the other person alone,” JF says. “Connect, yes. See each other, yes. Be present together, absolutely. But no crazy faces, no smoulders, no pushing and pulling. Just stay and don’t make this into a sex-based competition. If you want this to work the way you say you do, you have to learn how to be close without going _there._ You have to learn how to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.”

 

And then JF does the last thing Scott would have thought he would: He leaves them _alone._

“I’ll be back in three minutes,” he says. “And forgive me, but I swear to god if I come back and anybody is naked, I’m calling Marie.” With long strides on his long legs, Jean-François stalks to the door, opens it and looks back at them as they’re standing by the fireplace like lovers, and adds: “Stay _just_ like that, no funny business. And keep your tongues to yourselves.”

 

The door snaps closed on that and Tessa and Scott are left in silence, the proximity and the fact that they’re alone now like a sledgehammer bursting their comfort zone with a bang. His hands burn on her, hers on him are warm and steady, but shaking still, ever so slightly.

“Hi,” he says, eventually.

“Hi,” she smiles, weak and guarded.

 

“So I guess we’re still not getting our levels for subtlety,” he quips softly because humour is literally the only way he knows how to deal with any of this right now.

“No, we’re not,” Tessa almost whispers and keeps her eyes on him. “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for, T?” He asks sincerely.

“For making it about sex,” she says and sounds guilty. “The cuing.”

“Hey, takes two to tango, right?” He tells her.

“Yeah, but…I was…you know, I was _trying_ ,” she admits.

“I know, sweetie,” he says, the endearment leaving his lips without warning and with no way to take it back, so he just goes over it. “And I fucking loved it, you know I did. I wanted you, too.”

“God, Scott, what’s wrong with us?” She asks him, breaking the rules technically, because she fists her fingers into his shirt. He tries hard not to let it rattle him. (Which he really should, because his dick has only _just_ calmed down.)

 

“Weird brains,” he shrugs fatalistically, and then adds, more seriously: “You know I’m always gonna want you, Tess. And like, I can’t even help it. I’m wired that way, you know. I just learned that the other day.”

“I heard about that,” she mutters. “I think I have the same thing.”

 

 _So what do we do about it?_ He wants to ask but there is a blaring red stop sign in her eyes that he just can’t ignore.

“We’ll just try to be better about it, kiddo,” he says instead and she looks so grateful he feels like crying. _Why are you making this so hard, T?!_

“Yeah,” she says and smiles warmly. “We’ll just…be very unsexy from now on.”

 

And then her face changes, switches from pensive to slightly amused and she cocks her head at him. “You know what I just realised?”

“What?” He asks, unable to not mirror her smile because it’s literally his favourite thing to look at.

“You haven’t farted in front of me since before Sochi, I think.”

“Oh my God, Tess,” is all he can say, scrunching his face up, because _honestly, woman_. “Are you kidding me?!”

“No, I’m serious,” she says. “Remember in Kitchener, you actually farted in my face once and you laughed so hard you even peed a little.”

“Please stop talking,” he says and it takes all he has to keep his hands on her instead of burying his face in them like he wants to. “I’m not gonna fart in your face so you don’t wanna have sex with me anymore.”

Tessa giggles, which eases a little of the high levels of mortification in his blood.

“Please don’t,” she grins. “All I’m saying is, let’s get back to that…like, general mindset. Let’s be a little bit gross, okay? Let’s try not to be sexy for each other.”

 

She sounds so hopeful that he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that there is no way she’ll ever be not sexy to him. (Including the farting, thank you very much, because they have shared enough beds throughout the years to know that once she’s asleep, Tessa Virtue too, has a digestive system and –shockingly enough– bowel movement. Still, that had never stopped him from wanting her, body and soul, or from needing her to not leave his bed, ever. Not for a second.)

“Okay, I’ll try to be a little less sexy,” he concedes anyway, holding his peace, very much for her benefit only. “I can’t make any promises, though. Because I’m a _fox_ , let’s be real.”

 

She laughs fully now, her eyes crinkling and on full volume and it’s to that laugh that JF comes back, three juice boxes in his hand and looks at them quizzically.

“I see everyone is still wearing clothes,” their mental coach notes, making his way to his couch and gesturing them to sit down again on theirs as well. 

 

Once they do, he keeps on taxing them for a moment and Scott wonders if the other man is scanning his face to see if there’s lipstick on it.

“We were being good,” Scott tells him, to save him the trouble. “We agreed to stop being sexy.”

JF purses his lips, to maybe, probably chastise him for joking, but then relents. 

“Good,” JF says. “You know guys, I’m not trying to be an ass or make fun of you, and I can only repeat that I’m not _that_ kind of coach usually. We’re all trying for you. Marie, Patch, Scotty, all of us. We just wanna help you be the best athletes you can be.”

“We know,” Tessa says evenly. “And we appreciate it. We need a little kick in the butt sometimes, you know? Old habits die hard. I think we’ve been doing _this_ since I was sixteen.”

“Fifteen,” Scott corrects and it’s only half a joke. She chuckles anyway.

 

JF sets two juice boxes in front of them and Scott appreciates the humour more than he can say. It makes sense in a way, what with Marie-France calling them her babies all the time, that JF mimes the benevolent teacher who doesn’t let them get away with their bullshit. It’s all fair, it’s all good. It’s all for the comeback.

 

(But he feels Tessa sit this much closer to him now and no matter how hard they try –and he will try–, that’ll never go away ever, that near electric current thing he feels, radiating from her skin to his as if they could spark off of each other at any second. He _wants_ her. It’s a part of him, biologically confirmed and all. And like he’d told her, that’s really never going to change.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are life and you are all beautiful!  
> Thank you for reading <3


	5. …Months to Days Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New day, new bullshit. This Thursday, Tessa gets her taste of blue balls.
> 
> Thank you so much for your continued input and your thoughts, they all mean so much to me!
> 
> ALSO a huge, overdue thanks at this point for the Happy Chat's constant support and answers to my word and science questions with never-ending patience, you guys are the best <3

Thursday, 4:03 PM, July 14th 2016

 

Tessa is fine _._ No, really. She’s absolutely _peachy._ Except for the fact that she feels like she has an ant colony living just beneath her first layer of skin, her life is really top notch right now. Training is good and invigorating, she loves the smell of the rink every day and this feeling that with every stroke, her edges are getting back to that competition level of deep, calculated precision that hadn’t been quite as important in show skating. She also loves how her muscles are slowly returning to form and if arm-wrestling Scott had been any indication (shenanigans aside), she is evidently in great shape strength-wise. She also likes it a little bit that she is somewhat ahead of him in that department, thinks it’s adorable when he whines at the gym from time to time about how he is definitely _dying_ and the question is just when and asks if Tessa will take him to the hospital once he finally keels over from exertion.

 

And despite the fact that Scott had once pompously declared that he would never do yoga or pilates, he now joins her for both and as much as she would like to believe that it’s because he wants to spend even more time with her than they do anyway, it’s probably because he’s worried about not getting back in shape in time. “Relax,” she tells him whenever she sees his brow furrow and his chest rise and fall rapidly, his body trying to catch up with his athletic aspirations, always gritting his teeth in stern determination to _be better_ at the end of a rep on this or that exercise. “You’re doing great,” she’d say, always. And he always huffs at her and points at whatever she is doing as if to say “Get back to your thing, I don’t want you to see me struggle here”.

 

His inability to let her comfort him through the more strenuous moments of training aside, she has not a single thing to bemoan on the physical avenue of this comeback so far. Even the change in diet is reasonably okay and manageable. She gets one cheat-day a week to indulge in a glass of wine and one, two pieces of chocolate and sometimes, Scott gives her a little bit of the extra carbs he gets in his meal plan under the table, saying that he needs to lose weight and she looks perfect already anyway (which doesn’t hurt to hear at all). Either way, her clothes fit like they haven’t in months and she feels energised and ready to tackle each day to its full potential. So all in all, everything is going absolutely great. Except…well, yeah. _Except._

 

That whole thing about “stopping with the sexy”, as Scott had dubbed it, is _terrible_ , truly and honestly. Mostly because they’ve actually stuck to the plan and really did cut out the egging each other on, the 'Too Much'-business and the getting close outside of skating for whatever excuse they can think of as if they were honest-to-God true platonics. If she had to describe how that’s making her feel in one word, she would say ‘bereft’, because that’s really what it is. She feels like something has been _stolen_ from her and the worst part is, she can’t even be mad at anybody because that had been their own damn choice, their agreement to do better in this comeback. (Okay, she does blame JF and Marie-France a tiny little bit but she knows full well that that’s immature and they’re only trying to help.) 

 

Slyly –and she is also aware of that– Tessa does still take some liberties when at the rink with him, suggesting lifts and spins that have him firmly inside her personal space, nearly all of them _Scott-able_ , which means basically that he will drag out those moments of contact until he absolutely has to segue into the next sequence but not before burying his face in some handy clavicle of her body and breathing her in almost obscenely (which is exactly what she’d had in mind anyway). And yeah, if there are other occasions where she can get away with getting a little closer to him than necessary while still remaining generally on course with the “no funny business”-rule, she takes those chances in spades. 

 

Like this morning when Patch was running around taking pictures of all the couples in training and eventually told Tessa and Scott to pose for a photo and she had pretty much climbed into her partner’s chest without pause. She went in hard, holding Scott tight, one arm slipping around his to reach around his shoulder and leaning in, the other flying to where his heart is. He had followed her move instantly, turning completely towards her, until both their hips were aligned and touching and pulled her even closer against him, one hand on her ribcage, the other one bracketing her in at her arm. Their faces had touched and she had felt every breath he took as if they’d been her own. Needless to say she was half-delirious and grinning like a dweeb by the time Patrice hit the button.

 

“This is precious,” Patch had said and showed them the snapshot on his phone the exact second Scott pinched her in the side, seeing exactly what she saw in the picture. Which was dramatically too much contact to count as not being laughably into each other and he’d pushed her away from him a little after whispering “ _Behave!_ ” under his breath, so quiet and so close to her ear, it was almost a kiss. 

“I’m gonna put that up in the office,” Patch had declared fondly and then left them to continue their stroking about the rink and if he found anything odd about their over-the-top posing, he didn’t mention it.

 

It’s a testament to Tessa’s frail state of mind that she’s still reeling from taking that picture a good four hours after the fact. He had smelled so, so good, she really hadn’t wanted to let go of him.

“You’re very cuddly today. What’s up with you?” Scott had asked her a little later, softly prying her arms off of him after half a lap across the ice when she’d decided to skate behind him, holding on to his chest so he effectively pulled her. (This was merely _bending_ the rules if anything, okay, because they had done this or a variant of it all through their career. The variant was Scott being the one hugging her from behind but since he hadn’t seemed inclined to do that earlier, she had taken it upon herself to.)

“You smell so nice,” she’d told him with a shrug, skating faster to come up beside him. He just laughed in response. Loudly. “What’s so funny?” She’d asked him, mildly confused. 

“T, I thought I’d be a little gross today, just for you,” he had told her, still laughing freely. “So I didn’t put on deodorant. I positively _stink._ ”

 _Not to me you don’t_ , Tessa had thought, mortified. _To me you smell like absolute heaven and like I’d happily distill what is apparently plain sweat from your shirt, put it in a tub and bathe in it for hours until my skin is all wrinkled up._ (And so the being-gross was obviously not a problem for Tessa.)

 

Scott, meanwhile, had tilted his head at her as if he’d heard her thoughts and then shook his locks at her.

“Weird brain,” Tessa had told him on a weak, kind-of “Shit Happens”-smile and they joined hands out of sheer habit.

“I _was_ really trying to help,” Scott said as they’d skated on, perimeter, and without picking up speed.

“I know,” had been the only acceptable reply. “I appreciate it.”

 _I still want to drag you into the locker room and swallow you whole_ , she had thought, helplessly.

 

Tessa does not say any of that however when JF starts out their relationship-counselling a couple hours later at his office by asking them how they are.

“Pretty good,” Tessa smiles at him brightly, noting that Scott says the same thing in time with her.

“How is your…new _approach_ coming about?” JF asks with a raised eyebrow.

“We’re handling it,” says Scott diligently, and maybe that’s true for him. And yeah, he _has_ been handling it from where she sits but Tessa on her end, evidently can’t handle it at all. Still, she doesn’t say that. She just nods along.

 

“Good,” says JF, none the wiser about the fact (because Tessa, unlike Scott, still has a damn good pokerface), and moves on from the start-of-session pleasantries. “So, today I thought we could have a look at behaviour. Because I think we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks that sometimes you two don’t talk to each other about the underlying issues and instead try to interpret each others behaviours to make up for that lack of direct communication. And until we’re at a point where you can communicate fully and effectively with words about why you’re making certain choices, we’re going to learn a bit about why humans usually act how they act in general, so that things don’t get lost in translation so easily.”

“Seems sensible,” says Scott and leans back in the couch because he knows as well as Tessa that JF is going to get theoretical on them now.

 

“Okay so, Scott, remember how a while ago I told you that no behaviour and no decision happens in a vacuum?” JF says, poised at the edge of the couch, his arms open and tone engaging and Tessa thinks she really should go to one of those talks and workshops he’s invited them to, because JF really is one hell of a talker. “Basically, we as humans, both cognitively and biologically, play through multiple scenarios before acting a certain way or making a certain decision. Cognitively, we draw on experiences and learned strategies but our biology colours that cognitive process every step of the way in ways we’re mostly not even aware of. Fluctuating hormones, wired synapses in our brains, even stuff like…bad congestion, all play a part there. So while you think you’re making a decision with your head only, even if you think it’s a _snap_ decision, it really isn’t. Your brain and your body act on things it’s experienced months to days before, even if you believe you’re reacting within seconds.”

 

Tessa sits up straighter, listening to him intently and welcoming the change of pace, the new topic to think about because it takes her mind off of Scott and how he’s sitting closer to her than he has in the sessions before, close enough to feel the heat of his body radiate over to hers (and he still smells ready-to-eat-good). _Focus, Tessa_ , she tells herself. _Someone is talking to you._

 

“This is something vital to be aware of for the both of you when trying to read and understand each other’s behaviour,” JF tells them. “And of course you can’t know every thought process and every, let’s say, hormonal shift in the other’s system. You should periodically remind yourselves that even with as well as you know each other, there is no way to completely be able to understand every behaviour as it is intended or how it came about just by watching and trying to analyse the other. You _need_ communication for that. But, like I said, since open communication is a task and a half and a big thing to work towards, I want to point out a little thing you can start practicing today in dealing with each other that might help until we’re all the way there.”

 

“I want you to think of moments when you were told unexpected news or heard a comment that you had a strong reaction to. The first thing your face does when you receive an information is an initial reaction expressed in a micro expression. Those are fleeting and don’t last even a second mostly. They’re giving away your immediate emotional response to whatever you have just learned and if you can read those on someone else, you immediately have a better chance of understanding the person right,” JF goes on routinely. “Humans tend to mirror those expressions even to a certain extent without mostly being aware of it because your amygdala, the part that picks up all those cues, has this cool thing where it can soak those expressions up and send on some basic info about them to your frontal cortex who then processes it. That is also to say that the person who just had that initial response goes through the same thing at the time, oftentimes haven’t even processed that first emotional expression themselves. It’s wildly fascinating.”

 

JF pauses to rummage around underneath the table top and produces a stack of notecards and holds them up for them to see. “The general opinion is that there are seven universal emotions that present themselves in those micro-expressions, namely disgust, fear, anger, sadness, happiness, surprise and contempt. I’m going to read out some statements to each of you, while the other watches and tells me what they read as the initial response, alright?”

 

Tessa nods, focused on the task at hand and shifts on the couch to look at Scott who mirrors her movement, tucking his leg under the other so he sits almost cross-legged, his knee almost touching hers. He smiles at her encouragingly and she can’t help but smile back. And wow, is it nice to do all this weird stuff with him. She honestly doesn’t know if she would want to go soul-searching with anyone other than Scott or learn to read the whole palette of human emotion from anybody’s face but his. Probably not. He grins.

“I can hear you thinking,” he mutters, eyes alight. _Definitely not_ , she thinks.

 

“Okay, let’s start with Tessa,” JF instructs. “I’ll read a statement, Tessa needs to do nothing but react and process and then I want you, Scott, to tell me what you see. Everybody ready?”

Tessa straightens, nods, and Scott does the same.

“Oh, we’re gonna be great at this game,” Scott says to her and she chuckles, anticipating the first statement and almost switching into competition mode, even when she doesn’t really have to do anything.

“You’re right on track to win the Olympics in twenty-eighteen,” is the first statement that JF reads out.

“Happiness,” Scott says, immediately after. “That was easy.”

“You have to eat a live cockroach,” comes the second statement from the opposing couch.

“Disgust,” Scott pipes. “Come on, Jeff, you gotta make us work for it a little bit.”

“Hey, I’m just establishing a baseline here,” their coach says and Tessa purses her lips over a smile, trying to stay serious.

 

“If you went into a coma and you were brain-dead, you would want to be taken off of life-support,” JF continues reading.

“Oh,” Scott says and waits and Tessa thinks about the statement more than she watches Scott watch her. “I can’t really…” Scott mumbles. “That was a couple, I think. Sadness. Then fear. Then nothing.”

“Yup, the ‘nothing’ is Tessa rationalising that it’s not an imminent threat,” JF explains while Tessa  still ponders the brain-dead thing and lands on a tentative _yeah, probably._ “That’s the amygdala passing on the information to her frontal cortex who then mitigates the content. But moving on…Tessa, Scott is going to change his partner and dance with someone else.”

 

“Anger…or, no…contempt,” says Scott and then smirks, before softening. “I would never, T.”

“I know that,” Tessa says, feeling her face go back to normal. But the thought still stings just the same as it had back after her first surgery. That he would just move on and have that…that connection, that career, that _life_ with anybody else.

“Tessa, is Scott doing good so far?” JF checks and Tessa nods.

“Right about everything,” she says, looking at Scott and he looks smug.

“Told you,” he says, smiling with his eyes, making her heart flutter. “I _know_ you, T.”

 

“Tessa, Scott is seeing someone,” JF says suddenly, into their moment, and Tessa instantly forgets about the statement-game, about micro-expressions and absolutely anything else and goes right into panic mode. 

Like a whip, her head snaps around to their therapist to ask him how he can say something heinous like that, her heart beating frantically as if she’s running a marathon, and she opens her mouth to speak but can’t so she turns back around to Scott to ask him if it’s _true._ But Scott just looks at her in wide-eyed wonder and then bursts out laughing.

“Look at that look!” He hollers. “Oh, my God what was _that_ , Tess? That looked like fear and disgust and anger all at the same time.”

 

 _It looked like jealousy_ , Tessa’s brain supplies about the same second she understands that she was read a statement, not presented with a revelation. She hangs her head in shame, humiliated and embarrassed. Scott nudges her knee with his, sensing her discomfort like he’s been trained for it (and hey, newsflash, _genius_ , he _has_ ).

“Hey, kiddo,” his voice is gentle, almost dropped to a whisper. “I’m not seeing anybody, you know that. No distractions, like we said.”

“Can _he_ go now?” She asks quietly, not acknowledging Scott because she simply can’t right now and looks at JF pleadingly instead. 

 

This just suddenly got way too real. 

 

JF merely nods, rearranging the cards in his hands and she could swear there’s a grin threatening to burst from the ends of his mouth. She fails to see the humour. This is _horrifying._ She’s just basically told Scott that she doesn’t want him to see anybody, would actually freak if he did, was just about to, actually. That’s not helping anything! How should this be helpful in any way? This was supposed to make things less complicated…but her basically shackling him to her to be abstinent from dating for, yes, for how long exactly? That’s not uncomplicated! That’s weird and fucked up and wrong. She has no claim on him and zero right to be upset at the thought and he was never supposed to _know_ that she felt this way!

 

“She _does_ have to look at me for that, doesn’t she?” Scott asks, interrupting her inner stampede and there’s still that tone of smugness in his voice that Tessa really has no interest of recounting in his eyes, so she stalls for just a little while longer, steeling herself and breathes deep before finally turning her head to him again.

When she does meet his gaze though, there’s neither pride nor triumph there, just a softness that is somehow hard at the same time, which for Scott equates to _sensual._ He looks at her like he’s thinking filthy things. She shoots him a warning glare and he clears his throat, rearranging his face. _Thin ice, Moir. For us both. Get it together._ (Whom she thinks this at, her or him, she’s not sure.)

 

“Your turn, Virtch,” Scott says and tilts his head and somehow, he’s even closer to her now, knees fully touching and hands in their laps close enough to reach out and join together with not so much as a stretch.

JF rustles his index cards. “Alright, first one for you Scott: The Leafs win the Stanley Cup.”

Tessa watches her partner’s face split into a grin, eyes shooting to the ceiling to probably imagine the victory ceremony, before falling slightly and then rolling.

“Happiness,” Tessa says easily. “Then realism.”

“One day,” Scott mutters under his breath. “One day well get there.”

“You break your leg two weeks before the Olympics,” JF says and Scott’s eyes go wide just before his neck nearly breaks as he twists to turn to JF with a snarl on his face.

“Don’t say that man, Jesus,” he begs and then knocks on the coffee table three times.

“Fear,” states Tessa, because that was pretty obvious. 

 

“Sorry,” JF says. “How about this: You never decided to comeback to competition and you’re married to Kaitlyn.” And Tessa tries really hard but apart from Scott’s jaw clenching once, there is literally nothing happening on his features.

“I don’t know,” she says honestly. She leans in slightly and Scott does her the favour of remaining still as she tries to find something in his eyes. They’re dark, endless pools now, the usually vivid hazel dim and lifeless. “Sadness?” _Emptiness_ , is what she really wants to say. The implications of that both huge and sort of hazy at the same time.

“Scott, you drop Tessa from a lift,” JF says, moving on. Scott turns around to glare at him a second time that day.

“Anger,” Tessa says without missing a beat. “But that’s because you talked about something going wrong again.” Instinctively, she touches Scott’s leg to get him back and he turns to her, probably equally as automatic. “He’s never dropped me once, by the way,” she adds. “But he doesn’t like me saying that either because that’s jinxing it.”

“I will _never_ drop you,” he says sternly, the angry flicker still not quite extinguished in his eyes.

“I’ll try to be nicer for the last one,” announces JF, him now the one sounding almost sheepish for a change. “Scott, you’re eighty and you still see Tessa everyday.”

And Scott smiles, nothing huge or dazzling, just a hopeful sort of wistfulness colouring his features and Tessa misses the fact that she’s smiling back at him instinctually because she sees them together in her mind’s eye, old and wrinkly and content in some rocking chairs on a porch somewhere. Together, as they’ve always been.

 

“Tessa?” Asks JF from his side of the table and she reluctantly breaks eye-contact with Scott to glance over at their coach. Ah, yes, there was a _task._

“I think that’s happiness,” she says. And doesn’t necessarily mean Scott’s micro-expression (which is pretty macro at this point, honestly).

“So, how did she do?” JF asks Scott, who re-adjusts his position again, opening himself up to the room.

“Spot-on,” he says, matter-of-factly. “But I knew we were gonna be good at this. I think we _are_ pretty good at this, have always been.”

 

“I think so, too,” says JF. “And that’s both great and potentially problematic. What I want you guys to understand is that between you, through these micro-expressions and generally being very in tune with each other, you’re having a _constant_ conversation. And most of the time you’re on the same page, probably so often that you might believe your infallible. But the thing is, you’re not. No one is. If I asked you now how many times you have misunderstood the other or drew your own conclusions and acted accordingly just assuming you knew anyway what the other one was thinking, the number would probably still be high, no matter how long you’ve functioned like this. Am I right?”

 

Of course he’s right. Tessa can’t count the times on two hands. They constantly misunderstood each other. Now probably a little less than when they were teenagers but there’d been more than enough holes in their communication in the recent years, filled instead with assumptions and silence.

 

She thinks of Scott, half passed out after a night on the town, crashing in her London house because he’d had the sensible thought of maybe not driving home hammered and he’d looked devastated for some reason but she never asked why. And when he’d slurred some mostly unintelligible stuff to her about that being the third time that week that he was “drunk off his ass”, she hadn’t asked either. She’d just laid out one of his shirts she’d stolen from him once and put a bucket next to the guest bed. She thinks of herself that first time they slept together again after finally getting that signature Carmen-lift right after weeks of trying and failing to nail it. Of how he had gently brushed a strand of hair from her damp forehead and had asked: “What are you thinking?” And she hadn’t even attempted to be honest. She thinks of so many moments, exactly like this, the freshest one a couple of minutes old; her mortification at the reality of Scott now being aware just how much she hates the idea of him seeing other people. And how she really doesn’t want to discuss that fact. 

 

“Probably,” says Scott, answering JFs question and Tessa nods absent-mindedly. 

“So be aware of that,” JF replies. “Be mindful. Read each other as best as you can, keep an eye out for those micro-expressions, practice like this if it helps. But honestly, ask each other if you don’t understand something, if anything doesn’t add up. That’s literally the only way to be sure. I know it sounds like dumb advice but you know how hard it is.”

This is also true. It’s maybe the hardest thing about living the past eighteen years by Scott’s side; asking him things and being ready to hear what he might answer. It’s so hard, she has no idea how to even form the words for all the questions she has. 

_What does it all mean, Scott? Where are we going, what are we doing? Is this it, could this be it? Are you ready? Am I ready? Am I imagining things? Can we please skip over all the uncertainty and spend just five minutes in 2018 and see if it’s all worth it?_

 

(If she could have done just that, jump two years ahead to after PyeongChang, after all the uncertainty, that question would’ve been answered in a lot less than five minutes but how could Tessa have known that then?)

 

 

“Tess?” Scott says after a long moment, somewhat hesitantly. “So, in the spirit of asking each other things to clarify…”

 

_Oh Boy._

 

If that’s possible, every _single_ last hair on Tessa’s body stands up in alarm, her amygdala yelling “FLIGHT” at her frontal cortex but that traitor thing has her stuck in her place, like a deer in the headlights (so what is that about those deer’s frontal cortexes, anyway?! They must be about as useless as hers right now).

 

“About that thing, just then,” he says, pauses again and she starts chipping away her otherwise perfect nail polish from her left hand with her right with surgical precision. “I’m not seeing anybody. But do you…do you wanna see someone? Or like…I don’t know, _you know_ …two years is a long time.”

Wait, is he asking what she thinks he’s asking?

“Are you asking me if I want to have random sex with random dudes?” She asks him. To _clarify._

“Well…,” he mutters. “Yeah. _That._ Other dudes. Yeah. I guess.”

“Do _you_ wanna have random sex with random girls?” She snaps back.

“I asked you first,” he says, stubbornly and she guesses that’s fair. (But really, if he’s looking for an answer for that, she’s pretty sure her micro-expression was _disgust_ anyway when it computed what he’d meant.)

“No,” she says, macro-expressing it in case it hadn’t translated before. “I am perfectly fine going without sex for a _considerable_ time, Scott.” (Well over a year so far, by the way, since about two weeks before she broke things off with Ryan to be exact.) “I’m not some nymphomanic floozy.”

“Come on, T, that’s not what I meant at all,” he huffs irritatedly. “But with the way you’ve been… _we’ve_ been acting lately, it’s a valid question, don’t you think?”

 

And now Tessa literally has to get up and walk a few paces away from the couch because he’s too close, too near, too obvious asking that. In front of JF, no less! JF who already thinks they’re insane. 

“That’s not…,” she starts and grunts, turning to the fire place and balling her hands into fists. “That’s not about _sex._ That’s about…it’s about sex with _you._ ”

“Oh,” is all Scott apparently has to say about that. And how on earth had he not gotten _that_ memo yet?!

“Yes, oh,” she says, turning around to glare down at him, trying hard to ignore that there’s another person but the two of them in the room. 

 

And well, when Scott catches her eye forgetting about their therapist there is surprisingly easy. Because all of that tension is of course still right there between them and it hits her squarely in the chest (and other parts). She needs to act and fast, before their poor mental coach can sue them for joint sexual harassment or at least public indecency at his workplace. 

“I’m not gonna screw my way around Montreal until the Olympics, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she barks, opting for a forward approach. “I have two healthy hands, a shower-head with that _good-for-you_ -setting and a perfectly functioning vibrator at home, so I’m good, Scott. I got it _covered_.”

 

Maybe that wasn’t particularly helpful, judging by the way Scott ruts backwards into the couch, staring at her as if she was already using that stupid sex toy Jordan (of all people) had gotten her for some birthday, in front of him, right in JF’s damn office. And God, it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair how his cheeks flush red and then hollow out on a deep breath that turns into him swallowing hard, the sharp curve of his Adam’s apple bopping on that deliciously thick neck of his that she just wants to lick and bite and kiss until he begs her to go down on him and do all of that _there._

“So, do _you_ wanna screw your way around Montreal until the Olympics?” She throws it back at him to divert both the conversation and the blood from his crotch back to his brain (because of course she’s looked and of course he’s all _excited_ now).

“I’m fine,” he croaks and holds up both of _his_ hands to illustrate his point. The absolute _fucker._

 

And that’s a mental image she really needed. Scott, in his bed, in his shower, Scott _wherever the fuck_ , writhing under his own touch, jerking himself off fast and slow and any pace in between, moaning (her name, preferably) and coming all over those strong, wonderful hands, his face split in that angry-looking ‘oh’ that she is literally squirming in this very moment to see just _one_ more time in her life hovering above her, watching as he forgets his name. Holy _fuck._ Also, how exactly did they get here? Where exactly did she miss the exit for “appropriate therapy conversation” and raced on down the “I’m getting fucking turned on in a wildly inappropriate setting by imagining how my skating partner gets himself off to preferably thoughts of me”-highway?

 

And that’s it, this is crazy. This is the _opposite_ of uncomplicated. She’s _out_ of there.

 

“I’m going to the gym. Don’t follow me,” she declares, a full ten minutes before the regularly scheduled ending of the session, grabs her tote bag from where she’s put it on the floor beside the couch, harsh enough to believe it had given her personal offence, and storms out of there before she can do anything stupid like jump her oh-so-very-platonic skating partner in their therapist’s office. Her ears ring with how hard she slams the door behind her and she veritably stomps all the way over to the gym, not looking back once.

 

She’ll text them later, both of them. JF to apologise for her behaviour and Scott to ask him to please not talk about her brash exit _ever._ She gets virtually the same reply from both. A version of: _It’s okay, Tessa._ Come next week, JF will not mention it and thankfully, for a time, neither will Scott. But everything that happens between them in the following days will be coloured in the echo of something that JF said in the session, that thing about how every decision, every action is influenced by a multitude of factors that have come before, months before, weeks before, days before. 

 

And that’s what it is, Tessa will realise later. Everything after that session feels very much like the  ‘before’, the weeks and days… _before._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? I heard some of you wanted to shake Tessa last chapter... she's definitely shook now, so maybe that's something.  
> If anything, something is gonna happen before long ;)
> 
> Thank you all for sticking around!


	6. ...the Masculine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little earlier today because those Scott chapters really do write themselves. 
> 
> This "week", Tessa is out at an interview and so JF and Scott have class outside (*Barney-voice*).
> 
> Thank you so so much for all your continued input! I am so interested to hear how you feel about the meta-elements and I honestly learn so much myself going into the biological/psychological stuff researching this fic. Everything about testosterone is from the book that gives this fic its title, partly even transcribed directly because there's no way I could put it down as eloquently as it's put in that book.
> 
> ALSO some of the word credit goes directly to Mr. Scott Moir, because he literally said some of those things with his own mouth, as we know and heard. And it's so beautiful, I couldn't have made it up. (Bless that Scott Livingston podcast, honestly!)
> 
> I hope you enjoy and leave me your thoughts at the end :)

Thursday, 3:56 PM, July 21th 2016

 

Scott has his gym bag slung over his torso and the goodbye-cheek-kiss he’d given Tessa upon leaving is still burning on his face when he rounds the corner into JFs hallway. He doesn’t make it to the door, though because in the next moment their mental prep coach exits his office, his own messenger bag bouncing on his shoulder from turning to lock the door.

“Are you ditching me, too?” Scott calls over in mock-accusation and walks towards him.

“I would never,” JF laughs. “But I thought since Tessa isn’t joining us today, we could have class outside, so to speak. Make some use of that nice weather and loosen this bitch up a little bit.”

 

Scott laughs, deeply appreciating JF cursing (because he’d had an idea that their therapist wasn’t quite as stilted in real life as he usually was in their sessions). It also gives him a pretty good idea that this solo session is going to be very much tailored to him, Scott Moir, specifically. And really, why not. Heaven knows he has a lot to talk about and maybe it’s a blessing that Tessa has flaked on this week because of a HuffPost interview request she’d gotten (well, _they’d_ gotten but Scott hadn’t been in the mood for, really). 

“So are we finally getting that beer together?” Scott asks him, falling into step with his coach as he walks up to him, looking up slightly as he usually has to when around regular sized men.

“Nonalcoholic beer, for sure,” JF grins. “I’m still working on my part.”

“Sure,” Scott says with a wink. “And I’m in training.”

 

Twenty minutes and a cab ride later, they’ve sat down at a table at _La Terrasse Saint-Ambroise_ overlooking a spacious, bustling outdoor area with two very much alcoholic apricot beers fresh from the tab sweating in front of them in the 30 degree heat. (It's pretty nonsensical that Scott even made the track out to JFs office in Laval because they just went right back into the Gadbois neighbourhood where Scott originally came from and they could've just met there. But alas, this way he can walk home by the river later and he really, really likes that apricot beer, so it's all good.)

“Don’t tell Tessa about this,” Scott says conspiratorially as he raises his glass to clink it with JFs.

“I won’t if you won’t,” the other man replies. 

 

Yes, this is a guy after Scott’s own heart. 

 

“So, how’s your week going?” The sports psychologist asks but doesn’t sound like one, he sounds like a friend. Which is why Scott answers like a friend.

“This comeback is kicking my ass, man,” he says unfiltered, putting his glass down after a sip and eyes it suspiciously. “I’m pretty sure I’m already drunk.” (JF laughs at that.) “No, seriously. We’re working so hard, it’s ice and gym and physio and pilates and rinse and repeat. And then when I try to sleep, it’s Kansas City Shuffle in my head and I’m thinking about Tessa.”

“You hear jazz in your head when you’re thinking about Tessa?” JF asks on half a laugh.

“Don’t even ask. It’s like the soundtrack to my cartoon-version recaps of all our bullshit,” Scott says and then hums a few bars, loud and effeminate enough to make a few people at other tables turn their heads. He stops and shakes his head gravely. “It’s just a lot. I feel like I’m playing tug-of-war against her while trying to be an Olympian again and I’m wildly out of shape for both.”

 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Asks JF. If as per his job description or because he genuinely cares, Scott doesn’t know. But he can’t get himself to really care either, to be honest.

“Yeah,” he says, thinking of how neither of his brothers have any patience left for his moping around over the matter. “It’s all I _ever_ wanna talk about, it seems. I should be focusing on other stuff, I know that. But she’s so…so…she’s _everywhere_ , man. You know?”

“I get it,” JF nods. “And like I mentioned, I’m not usually so well versed in all that romantic stuff, psychologically. But I did manage to marry the love of my life and so far she hasn’t run for the woods, so maybe with that and what I do know about how humans work, I can help you deal with this.”

 

“Is it that obvious?” Scott asks, his mind catching on something that JF said.

“What is?” The other asks.

“That she’s the love of my life,” Scott supplies, thoughtfully.

“Well, yeah,” answers JF. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

“Why can’t she see it, then?” Scott asks, honestly puzzled.

“Oh, she does,” JF tells him. “She wouldn’t be this terrified if she didn’t.”

“She _is_ terrified, isn’t she? But why?” Scott says and throws up his hands in exasperation, nearly knocking over his glass. “I’m doing literally everything I can to show her that I’m there. That I’m all fucking in. I haven’t even looked at another woman since we shook on the comeback. I broke up with Kaitlyn like two minutes later and that was shitty as hell. I’m _here_. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Well, for starters, you’re not telling her any of this,” JF remains and Scott hates him a little bit for thinking so simplistically. Because it isn’t that easy.

“It isn’t that easy,” he voices his thoughts. “Talking to her is no use, she just shuts down. I mean, you’ve seen it. Which is rich because she’s always accusing me of that. But I try and…when I just look at her funny, she goes into stealth mode. Like, I know that I hurt her with Kaitlyn and everything…and fine, probably often enough through the years but…I know that I’m not imagining this. Put us on the ice for two minutes and she’s all over me. It’s like, if she would just stop _thinking_ for one second, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”

 

“On a scale from one to ten, how impulsive would you say you are?” JF asks and takes a sip from his beer.

“I don’t know,” Scott replies. “Eleven?”

“So, she probably knows that,” JF says. “Maybe she’s scared that you’re just being impulsive.”

“Well, then I’ve been impulsive for the last ten months,” Scott huffs. “No wonder I’m exhausted.”

JF laughs in a way that sounds like it’s in spite of his best efforts not to. “You know women do work differently than men, especially in risk assessment,” he says. “You can bet that in any given moment, she’s running calculations in her mind about possible outcomes of situations and decisions and if she doesn’t have all the variables to calculate with, it’s bound to wind up being this clusterfuck we can see unfold in real-time there.”

“Are you trying to tell me I need to be a _man_ and just go for it?” Scott asks, raising an eyebrow appraisingly. “Because I tried that after Sochi and that fucking backfired spectacularly.”

And JF does that therapist thing where he doesn’t say anything to get him to elaborate and because Scott finds he really _wants_ to elaborate, he does so after a generous sip of beer to steel himself. 

 

“You see, I talked to Mike Babcock after that whole Silver mess,” he says (still a little bit psyched that he can name-drop Mike-Effin-Babcock casually like that). “And he told me: ‘The scariest thing in life is that you really _can_ have all that you want’. And I was like…awesome, so why am I chasing after absolutely everything I want _but_ that one thing I want more than all the other things combined? So, I went after it and Tessa basically spit it in my face, so, really, I’m not all that into making great big speeches and asking her to be with me. I did that once and it nearly killed me. It’s her turn now.” He is well aware how stubborn he sounds but fuck it, if he doesn’t have any right to be.  

“It nearly killed you?” JF asks, picking exactly that piece of information that Scott would rather not get into. But that’s a good therapist for you.

 

“I was drinking a lot,” Scott says on a sigh. Because who can he talk about that ugly episode of his life if not his mental coach? “Like, a _lot._ And it wasn’t just because Tessa shut me down, though that was a big part of it. I don’t know, after she left me, and like, okay, she didn’t _leave_ -leave me but that’s what it felt like anyway, everything that had been my life for the last…well, since I was a kid, actually, was just suddenly _gone._ And in the beginning I tried to tell myself that that could be great, even if it was so unbelievably painful but anyway. I had _wanted_ a break from skating, that was a fact, and that whole life of discipline and deprivation had sucked so much at times, especially at the end. So I thought, like: Great, now you’re totally free. You can catch up on everything you missed. And if the one person who should love you at the end of the line doesn’t wanna do that, you’re gonna be loved by someone else. The right way. So I tried to live my eighteen-year-old-life at twenty-six and had the kind of relationship I wanted to have with Tessa with Kaitlyn. And I guess for six months I thought I was doing a fucking great job when really, I was spiralling to all hells.”  

 

JF listens intently, drinking from his beer occasionally but otherwise remaining still, giving Scott the space to vomit all the crap he’s been holding in for what feels like years out onto the patio table to his heart’s content. (Really, a fucking stellar dude, that Jean-François.)

“It got to a point where I was basically drunk for entire weekends, whenever Kaitlyn was away for competitions –she’s a curler, you know–, I would just call up people, go to the bar on Friday, get hammered and be vaguely sober by Tuesday. I was having fun, you know? And when I wasn’t drinking or skating, trying to ignore how much I still very much wanted Tessa and she was right there and everything, I was on the couch getting fat. I didn’t know what to do with my life at all.”

“And then?” JF asks.

“I don’t know,” Scott says. “My brothers said we should buy a house and renovate it, probably to give me something to do. Kaitlyn gave me pretty harsh-talking to and she was about to leave me as well and I kinda lost it. I thought I couldn’t take another great girl leaving me alone in the dust, so I got my shit together.”

“Where was Tessa for that?” JF follows up.

“Around, but not…” Scott shrugs. “We weren’t talking much then. She was still dicking around with that Ryan guy, who’s a giant asshole, by the way. And at a certain point I blocked her number before I left for the weekend brawls because eventually, I’d always want to call her and just…I was in a bad place.”

 

“Do you feel resentful that she wasn’t there for you in that time?”

“No,” Scott says, without hesitation. “She was _there._ She just wasn’t…she wasn’t close enough to see me fall apart but that was because I wouldn’t let her. I was lying to her about how bad it got. All I gave her was how happy I was with Kait and how great that was going. And Tess, she never pried. She gave me space. She’s always done that. Just watch us on the ice…when I blow up because I botched something, she skates the other way until I wound down a bit. Because I need it this way. I need to be alone for it because I hurt her when she’s around me when I get like that. I don’t _want_ her there for that. But she’s always back for the build-up. And she was there for it in 2015, too. I had to…I don’t know, crash and burn a bit but she was right there to salvage the rubble if we wanna stick to the metaphor. She built me back up again. So no, I’m not resentful at all. I’d lied to her for about a year, had treated her like crap after Carmen and before Sochi, I mean I basically called her insane every time she tried to talk to me about Marina’s shady deals and then I paraded Kaitlyn around everywhere just to piss her off. At least at first. After a while, I really was very fucking happy in that relationship. Which I guess was what hurt Tessa the most. Although that _was_ kinda her fault. Anyway. I’m not angry at her. I wouldn’t be here without Tess. I wouldn’t have known how to get myself out of that pit if she hadn’t taught me how to since I was a little boy.”

 

“But that’s interesting, because I was wondering if you were holding back a little bit, too,” muses JF. “Because you haven’t worked through that phase yet. But it seems you have.”

“Dude, I’m _good_ ,” Scott breathes. “Yeah, I’m tired from gym and getting my old bones back to what they were at twenty and I’m exhausted from dancing around Tessa, figuratively and literally, but I’m _happy._ As bad as it sounds. I haven’t been this happy in years. Tess and I, we haven’t been this good together since way before Carmen. I’m healthy, I’m skating, I’m eating well, I’m not drinking, present circumstance excluded. I talk to my family once a week, I give back to the skating community, I’m loving this city, even with the French, our sessions are great…I’m great.”

“But…,” says JF.

“But.” Agrees Scott. “Anyway, I’m not holding back more than I think I need to. It was so hard to get back to this place with her, I don’t wanna fuck it up again. I don’t know, man, I love her. I really fucking do.” (And Christ, is it good to say that out loud for once.)

 

JF hums pensively, squinting from the sun that has decided to show itself from beyond a cloud that had snuck in front of it a while ago. “Why do you love her, you think?”

 

Scott laughs, clipped and almost harsh. “ _Because._ Simple as that. It’s _Tessa._ She’s an unbelievable woman. I haven’t met anybody like her in my life. She’s so…she’s so consistent, she’s so strong. She’s graceful and gracious and warm and the most loyal person I know. She’s patient and always doing her best for everybody. She _listens_ and she knows what I need before I know it myself half the time. She’s always been so selfless with me, always putting her needs way beneath mine and she hasn’t asked for anything back in all our years. Since I was a kid, she’s been there for me like it’s the most natural thing, and even when she’s grumpy at me, she never gets angry. She’s, she’s like this,” he says and holds his hand flat in front of his chest, just to illustrate what he means, how even-keeled she is, how she never gets rattled when he goes off the rails, how she always snaps him out of his tangents. “And I’m like that.” He waves that same hand around now, miming the highs and lows, showing how he’s always feeling everything to its absolute extremes the way he does. “She balances me. And god, fuck, I know how sappy that sounds but she literally _completes_ me. She’s everything I’m not.”

 

“That’s so funny,” says JF. “Because you’re describing pretty much what the hormonal balance is in humans. Between you two, you’re the testosterone, she’s the oestrogen.”

“Oh, because I’m wildly unstable and she’s nurturing?” Scott puffs.

 

“Not exactly,” JF says, putting his now nearly empty glass to the side to have his hands free. There’s gonna be bio-knowledge coming now, Scott feels it in his bones. “Testosterone gets a wildly bad rap and oestrogen isn’t just for nurturing. You see, testosterone only amplifies what is there in someone’s wiring anyway. It only makes you unstable if you’re generally unstable. In it’s purest form, testosterone, especially in combination with adrenaline makes your reactions sharper, it literally gives you an edge. You’re more perceptive, you react faster. But it doesn’t make you more…like, aggressive if you’re not aggressive to begin with. Testosterone levels rise in the body in high-pressure situations as well as in somewhat more mundane social situations. A couple of things testosterone influences subtly and not so subtly is for example your ability to read micro-expressions, you know, what we did last week? With high testosterone levels in high-stress situations, you’ll always be less able to pick up on the nuances in Tessa’s face while with her own hormonal levels when she tends to be the calmer of you two, especially if oestrogen and oxytocin levels are high, she’ll always be able to read you better and thus, know how to balance you out instinctively. That’s purely physiological and fits so well with what you’re describing.”

 

JF looks at him expectantly, as if he fully expects to just have blown Scott’s mind. Only he’s still trying to process the bio lesson. “Go on,” Scott tells him, because even if he usually thinks more about muscle and movement-mechanics in regards to biology, he’s still interested to learn.

 

“Well, regarding testosterone in general, you see, it enhances confidence and optimism and decreases fear and anxiety, which is great!” JF continues. “And I think that’s a big part of who you are, ‘cause I think you’re pretty high-running on testosterone as a male of our animal variety. And also, you know, winning makes testosterone levels rise like crazy and you’ve had your share of wins throughout the years. By the way –and this is touching on Mondays and Tuesdays–, throughout the animal kingdom winning is such a craved high that from monkeys to rats, it’s chased up and down the block, which is also what you two are doing in this comeback, so it’s all very consistent with my point here. Anyway, see, what you gotta remember is that high testosterone levels also tend to tip at a certain point, meaning they will make you _over_ -confident and _overly_ optimistic before long. If that’s a part of your make-up, it can make you cocky, egocentric and narcissistic at the worst of it.”

 

“Oh, that was me from age sixteen until last month, probably,” laughs Scott, because really, that’s eerie how much this sounds exactly like him growing up.

“Exactly,” JF says excitedly. “And that’s where Tessa comes in. Because testosterone also works contingently and amplifying dependant on the _context_!” Scott watches JF with a sort-of awe at the other man’s sheer excitement about this stuff and even if he didn’t care a shred, it would be fun just to watch him be this engrossed in the field, really. Scott has always liked people who burn for what they do and finds JF very obviously like-minded in that regard. 

 

“There’s this great piece of research called the _Challenge Hypothesis_ ,” his coach goes on. “It says that testosterone levels rise when you’re presented with a challenge and that goes for competitions as well as someone challenging your world view or your behaviour. So if Tessa does that –you say balance you out but really, probably just challenging your state of mind when you go off–, that raises your testosterone levels. And because the outcome is, like you said, usually good, like, you feel better, you relax, you come back to yourself, that testosterone in your body will prompt the kind of behaviour required to maintain that nice-feeling status. And maintaining status in that situation requires you to be nicer, kinder, wiser and so the testosterone actually ups the volume on that! So she literally helps bring that out in you, what is already there, in your personality, anyway. She literally makes you a better person biologically.”

 

Scott looks at him for a long moment, finishes the rest of his beer and then shrugs. “Well, I kinda already knew that,” he says. “But it’s nice to have it scientifically proven.”

 

JF grins sheepishly. “Yeah, I know. I know most of this isn’t new, I guess I’m just trying to make a point so you get that everything you feel is valid and like, actually ingrained into your biology and that it’s…,” he stalls for a moment. “Ugh, I’m gonna get flack for this if anybody ever finds out and I really shouldn’t be telling you this because it’s really unprofessional, so I’ll deny I ever said this if you tell anyone, but, honestly, Scott, I’m just _rooting_ for you guys.”

“You and the rest of Canada,” sighs Scott, although he can’t help smiling. It’s nice to hear. 

“No, seriously,” JF remains. “You’ve got this! All this couple shit that most people need to labour at for years and barely ever get down to this level of baseline-working together that you guys have, you just…got it. Because, like I said, you grew so much into this. You’ve literally grown into this high-functioning entity, even with all the miscommunications and stalling, you’re still working so much better than 80% of the couples I know. You just need to get your heads outta tes ânes, pardon my French–” (Scott chuckles at that, because _good one._ ) “–and get your shit together.”

 

“You’re preaching to the choir here, JF,” Scott says. “You might wanna give _her_ that speech.”

“I know,” JF sighs. “I just wanna say, man to man, as a friend, it’s worth it. I know this sucks and it’s a lot to navigate on the back of a huge athletic comeback mission but you two really have the potential to be amazing together.”

 

“I know,” harps Scott. “I know, I know. But I don’t see the end of it. She needs to…she needs to take that step. I really…I _can’t._ I painted the target on my chest, she just needs to pull the trigger. Is there any biological way to explain that? When, or _if_ , she’ll ever be ready to do that?”

“Well, actually there is,” says JF and Scott perks up, because that is really very _interesting_ if it’s true. 

 

“You know how the frontal cortex steers behaviour, and often times so that it makes you do the “right thing” or what you perceive as the right thing anyway, instead of the easier thing?” JF starts. “Your frontal cortex is basically that little voice in your head asking for moderation, it constantly says ‘self-discipline is good’, so you don’t eat yourself to death or ruin your body in some other way. But that’s a lot of work and the frontal cortex has so much to do on any given day, moderating temptations is a pretty daunting task. It takes energy and when it’s working really hard, the frontal cortex has an extremely high metabolic rate and rates of activation of genes related to energy production.” 

 

Scott tilts his head and squints his eyes, not from the sun but from trying to follow.

“What I’m saying is, in lay-man’s terms,” JF relents, “is that will _power_ is more than just a metaphor. Self-control is a _finite_ resource. Even for  someone as inherently disciplined as Tessa. If you deal with a disappropriately large cognitive load, eventually, you snap.”

“So you’re saying I should overwhelm her…frontal cortex?” Scott asks.

“Pretty much,” confirms JF.

“Well, we were doing pretty good on that front with the ‘Too Much’-thing, I think, but you made us take that off the table,” Scott says, a hint of accusation in his voice.

“Yes and that was my therapist advice because you were swearing up and down the block that you didn’t want to go down the complicated route and keep sex out of it,” JF tells him. “And that’s still where I stand if that’s really the case. But I can tell you, as a friend, that you obviously don’t wanna do that at all. Or do you really _not_ want the sex and everything else?”

“I very much _do_ want the sex and everything else,” says Scott, because it’s absolutely no use pretending he doesn’t after the conversation they’ve just had.

 

“So, there you go,” JF declares, throwing his hands up and then slamming them down on the table, making it shake. “Wear her out. She can’t keep this up forever. I mean, you’ve seen her last week.”

“Yeah, actually,” Scott says. “What was that about anyway?”

“Dude, you know I could sue both your asses for that inappropriateness,” JF jokes, firmly not in therapist-territory anymore and Scott blurts out laughing. “I mean, there I thought I’m working with two professional athletes –and mind you, Mondays and Tuesdays you’re like model students, making B2Ten really proud of all that money they pay for your coaching– but last Thursday you were like petulant teenagers, just…casually telling each other how you masturbate thinking that’s a great way to go solving your conflicts? And right in front of me? That was a fucking hoot.”

“Yeah, sorry man,” shrugs Scott sheepishly. “I don’t know how that happened.”

“I know full well how that happened,” JF groans. “And the worst thing is I can’t even tell anybody about it because I swore that dumb hippocratic oath to not discuss my clients. So _you’re_ gonna listen to this now, because I get to talk to you about it. That was highly dysfunctional. And you two are usually so good about everything, like, understanding each other. But you really suck at understanding each other’s _motivations._ Tessa didn’t even realise that you were going to propose she sleep with _you_ to take the edge off.”

 

 _Oh._ So apparently JF had realised it.

 

“You got that?” Scott asks, dumbfounded, because he’d really believed he’s covered himself pretty well there after it was apparent that this suggestion wasn’t even remotely in the ballpark for Tessa. So little so that she rather or more easily believed he would be suggesting she pick up some random dudes for a quick fuck here and there in the two years to come than realise Scott was originally gonna suggest she maybe try fucking _him._ (Which obviously would have been a _purely_ selfless suggestion for her benefit and general bodily well-being only!)

 

“Of course I got that,” JF says, shaking his head at him. “And not just because I’m a guy. Like I said, you’re not subtle. But I must also say that, both as your friend _and_ as your therapist, I would not try the friends with benefits thing. You two are so well beyond that ever working out, it would just cause more confusion. Nope, you should finally have that talk and get over yourselves and be together like grown-ups. It’s not that hard, people have done it before. I mean, you’ve won the freaking Olympics, you have a nearly unparalleled athletic career together, I’ll say you will _manage_ to have a romantic partnership and not mess it up.”

 

“Do you really believe that?” Scott asks, sincerely looking for the reassurance.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Scott,” JF hollers, raising his voice for the first time since he’d known him. “Yeah, I really believe that.” Then he calms down quickly, because the two elderly tourists at the table in front of them have turned around and snickered at his expletive. “I meant what I said, you have all the makings of being a _fantastic_ couple and like, with an honest-to-god achingly beautiful love story that would make my wife weep if I could tell her about it. You literally just have to make it happen.”

 

And then JF gets up like that had been his Sunday sermon on the matter and snatches up his wallet that sat on the table. “Okay, session’s over,” he declares. “You’re off for today aren’t you, with Tessa at that interview?”

“Yeah, I’m off. But that interviews’s probably over already, actually,” Scott says and checks his phone for the first time since they’d sat down and of course, there’s a text from Tessa (“I’m done :) dinner at home later? I’ll get takeout and we can watch the Yankees game re-run”). “Yup, she’s heading home. We’re apparently gonna watch baseball later.”

“But you got time for another beer?” JF asks, gesturing to the bar and Scott nods. “Great, I’m buying,” his mental coach says. “And when I get back, we’re gonna talk about something that is not skating _or_ Tessa.”

 

Scott laughs, seeing Danny’s and Charlie’s fond impatience (and what the hell, Chiddy’s, too) written on his coach’s features and he thinks that’s fair. If all of the Tessa-and-Scott crap is even half as exhausting to people that have to hear about it as it is for him to live it, he can absolutely feel them. So he relents. And instead of talking about Tessa, Scott has JF talk at length about working with Derek Drouin and Mik Kingsbury and on the third beer, about how JF had met his wife in detail.

 

(And okay, Tessa does come up, but only _once_ more. When JF says: “…and well, my wife, she’s pretty much perfect” and Scott says: “I thought there is no perfection” and JF smirks: “Screw that, have you met my wife? To me, she’s what Tessa is to you”. And so yeah, there is no perfection, but evidently, there must always be some exceptions to the rule.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know that was Scott heavy and I miss Tessa, too! So "next week", we're gonna have her all to ourselves.  
> But for today..isn't it nice to be in his head for a while? Ugh, talk about non-toxic masculinity. Scott Moir, man above all men.
> 
> (This is all of course pure speculation, but let's just appreciate this fine human, real and fictional, for a little while, yeah?)


	7. ...the Feminine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's way too late, I shouldn't be up. I made a terrible mistake but I couldn't stop myself.
> 
> Here's Tessa's side of things.
> 
> MASSIVE thanks go out to the wonderful fairwinds09 who has helped me get into Tessa's head for this and came up with the whole boxes thing (you will know what I mean when you get there) ;)
> 
> Okay..let's go see what Tessa has to say about all of this!

Thursday, 4:13 PM, July 28th 2016

 

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry!” Tessa yelps, bursting into JF’s office and finds him at his desk, his reading glasses on, studying some notes. “I would have texted but my phone died! I’m so sorry, I’m never late! But the shower at the gym…and then it all took forever and I had the conditioner in my hair and–“

“Relax, Tessa,” JF half-laughs, breezily. “It’s barely fifteen minutes, it’s fine.”

Tessa breathes hard from running up the stairs to him, perched on the door-handle and panting. She hates being late so very fervently and it’s embarrassing and impolite, not valuing somebody’s time like that. She wants to apologise again but then JF has already gotten up and collected his messenger bag from the floor, smiling at her kindly. She isn’t quite sure about doing this session solo this week but since she had missed last week’s JF and Scott had thought it would only be fair if she got one just for herself too. And arguing with those two was really no use at all, so here she is.

 

“So last week I went to a de facto beer garden with Scott,” JF says, striding towards her. “I thought we could get out, too. I found the change of scenery really helped shake some things loose with him, maybe it’ll work for you as well?”

“What things?” Tessa inquires without thinking, unmoving as he comes upon her. JF grins.

“You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you?” His eyes are glinting mischievously, as if he knows something she doesn’t, which of course, instantly piques her curiosity. And she hadn’t been wondering a lot about what they had talked about, Scott and JF, the week before, because she simply hadn’t had much time to ponder anything with training shifting into a higher gear physically in the days following, but now she is _peeved_ and she wants to know _everything._ “I’m sorry, I can’t speak on that, Tessa.” JF says, as she expected he would. “Can’t discuss my clients private sessions, even if it’s you and Scott.”

 

“I get it,” Tessa says, mainly because she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of prying because she knows, she just _knows_ that JF is…j _ust like everybody else_ about this, about _them._  

She can feel the pressure from him to finally resolve what it is between her and Scott into something more tangible the way she can feel it from everyone else: Her mother, _Scott’s_ mother, her sister, Scott’s cousins, Danny, Marie-France, Patrice, especially Patrice, even kind-hearted and ever patient Scotty Livingston and his wife (as well as the message boards on the internet which she is pretending not to have any knowledge of). They all want something, they all think they know. Know what it takes to make this whole thing work with Scott, know just what they need to do to finally take those last steps to the happy-ever-after now that it’s so close in reach.

 

But they don’t. They simply _don’t._ They have no idea how much work it is, how much time it took to get to where they are now. How many nights she’s spent weeping with a broken heart for Scott Moir. At eight years old and eighteen and twenty-three and twenty-five and so many times in between. How many stolen kisses and rounds upon rounds of ill-advised, impulsive sex she’s brooded over and analysed to no tomorrow. How she had tried time and time again to deconstruct her entire personality just to fit his better. How she had slaved away, trying to be enough for him from the time she was a little girl to the time he’d looked at her like she hung the goddamn moon in his parents backyard and asked her for forever. 

 

And by then, she _had_ hung the moon for him. She had done all those things for him for the better part of fifteen years, to be just the girl, the woman, the _person_ he needed, the one he could love. So much, that by the end of it, she’d had no clue who _she_ was underneath all that anymore. And at the pinnacle of it, he’d loved her, finally, the way she had craved for so many years but the moment had felt hollow. Wrong, somehow. As if they were pretending. As if it was just another ending position of a program, choreographed and inevitable. As if those TV people that had twisted what they’d sold them as a sports documentary series into a soapy-reality-TV-mess, barely more than a caricature of their life together, had taken the reigns of their narrative again and finally penciled in that happy-end, perfect with fireflies and a bonfire glowing softly in the distance.

 

It had all been picture perfect in that moment. And yeah, she had seen it, the future with him. The wedding at the church in Ilderton where their parents had traded off driving duty at four in the morning when they were kids (even if the church had long since been closed, they probably would’ve bought it and renovated it, just for the romantics of it). The celebration following, right from their benevolently grinning mothers going “We always knew it”, to Scott drinking his weight in beer, to Skate Canada sending a fruit basket and CBC botching together a cheesy evening news bit about how the ice dance sweethearts had finally tied the knot. She had seen him move into her house in London, stain all her carpets and make her get a dark couch because no way a white one would survive a hockey season full of nachos and chips. She had seen her credit-cards and passport, all shiny and new, now spelling out _Tessa Virtue-Moir_ , had seen her body changing and her girlfriends touching her round belly at the baby shower. 

 

And she’d been terrified. And foreign in her own skin. _Do you even want me?_ She’d thought, horrified. _Or do you want what you made me?_ And so she’d run away. And learned not too long after that she’d made a horrible mistake. Because as much as she might have believed that she’d changed from who she’d was supposed to have been, had she never met or fallen in love with Scott Moir, she wound up figuring out that she very much was who she was, anyway. And whoever that person is, she still does very much love that boy who’d taken her hand and her heart all those years ago. And she realised that she’d gone about it all wrong. That she should have told him to just wait a little bit, to just give her a moment to process. But instead, she had told him “I can’t do this, Scott, I’m sorry” and left him in the cold. 

 

And the guilt she had come to feel about what that rejection did to Scott in the months following, only dampened by raging jealousy when suddenly Kaitlyn was in the picture, had been excruciating. He still thinks she hadn’t known that much about how heavily he’d been drinking and how his life had quickly dwindled down to whiskey, uncertainty and a single lifeline in form of a lone, tiny blonde woman who’d had no idea what she was in for. He has no idea that his mother called _her_ in tears one night after one of his benders and asked her to just tell her what had happened to her darling, _happy_ boy. And Tessa had been ready to pry off her own skin with a spoon, that’s how ashamed she’d been. Scott doesn’t know that. Scott thinks he had led a life of mostly secrecy around her that first half year after Sochi when really, he’d been spiralling like a helicopter missing a blade. And of course she’d known. She just hadn’t _asked_. And she’d done nothing about it because she knew he wouldn’t let her help, wouldn’t want her around. The shame it would have been for him to have her see him that way, might have even made things so much worse. But Tessa had quarrelled with herself, time and time again, about not helping him enough then and always, always about the guilt.

 

Because isn’t _that_ her complex? Since the first time she’d had to stop a practice because her legs burned so badly she could barely stand upright, she had felt guilty, and in particular, guilty about stuff she did to Scott Moir. It didn’t matter if it was because she couldn’t skate and slowed them down or was out for two months recovering from surgery, throwing his career in the balance with hers as well, or leaving him after Sochi to decline into misery and apathy or spilling coffee over his jeans on their ride to Gadbois this morning. She would always feel guiltiest when she believed to have done wrong by Scott. And that guilt was multiplied tenfold when she realised that Scott wasn’t ever mad at her really, not for the big things at least. 

 

She feels guilty as if she has to, as if he was angry with her or disappointed but he never is. He never really _was._ He takes all of it in stride, is so nice about everything (except maybe the leaving him after Sochi but _still_ ). It ends with her feeling guilty for feeling guilty. As if that’s an additional offence to Scott who would hate it if he knew she felt guilty _because_ of him. It’s a damn mess. And not only that. The whole damn lot of it is.

 

So no, no one really knows the ins and outs of their relationship quite like Tessa does. No one understands. Not even Scott sometimes, because he’s so wide-eyed and positive about everything. It’s just the way it is. He falls flat on his face and he’s forgotten it within five minutes because, oh, a butterfly or a perfectly in-sync twizzle and the world is theirs again, like a child.   _If you blow on it, it’ll stop hurting._  Unless he actually falls on his face on-ice, he remembers that and sulks so hard for hours about it, she wonders how both of these people are Scott at the same time. Either way, the heartbreak he forgets so fast. Erases from his mind instantly how much they can hurt each other, how if they crash and burn, they _burn._ But she doesn’t forget. She can’t. She wants to, really, she would break herself in half to be like Scott, to be less afraid. To just…walk on over to his condo tonight and stop with the bullshit. But she _is_ afraid. And she doesn’t see a way out.

 

“Tessa?” JF asks, sort of bullying her out of his doorway. “Are you with me?”

“Sorry,” she says, quickly. “I’m still a little…I ran here so fast, I’m still a little winded.”

“No problem,” he says. “So I was thinking Café Lali? You said you liked that the other day, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” she nods and smiles. “That would be great!”

“Nice,” JF smiles and there is an awkward pause for a while and Tessa thinks that this is exactly why it’s good to have Scott around most of the time. Because he doesn’t do awkward silences. He converses so easily, engages people in a way that she never could, free of hesitance or distance. He barges in, all guns blazing and makes people feel at ease and fall in love with him for it like a shot. Tessa, on the other hand,…comes, sees and makes things awkward. But she tries. And she’s damned if she hasn’t learned to make small talk by now. And she can be engaging, too, god dammit. So she _is._

 

On their cab ride over to the café, she asks JF casually about his week, about how his kids are, about the last show he watched on Netflix and the conversation is lively and funny by the time they sit down at Café Lali and order their drinks (a Cappuccino for him and a de-caffeinated Almond Latte Macchiato for her). 

“So,” JF starts, switching from his regular dude-voice to his therapist-tone and Tessa reflexively sits up straighter, as if they’re starting a test. (And really, isn’t every therapy session kind of a test after all? And Tessa, yeah, you can say many things about her, but she’s always, _always_ tested well.) “How are you feeling today?”

 

“Good,” Tessa answers honestly, because her baseline inner turmoil not withstanding, she’s had a great day (and honestly, fretting about Scott has been such a constant in her life that most of the time it’s part of her normal, like breathing). 

“How’s the training going?” JF asks, tentatively. “With the added distractions?”

“Oh, training is fine,” she says, not quite ready to delve into the subject yet. “The programs are slowly coming about. We’ve finally settled on a song for the Free.”

“What is it?” JF inquires, with genuine interest.

“Latch, by Sam Smith,” she says and beams. “It’s so wonderful. And I think it works really well, Marie-France is really on fire with it. We’re gonna theme it…a little second-chances-y.”

“So that’s very apropos,” JF notes, his French coming through on the last word in a way that makes Tessa smile.

“Yeah, it is,” she says, giving him that and gearing up to go into it. “We always like to have programs that are a little bit about us. Helps getting into character. And since this comeback is kind of all about second chances, it fits.”

 

“Would you like to elaborate on that?” JF asks her and stirs his coffee. “On the personal side, I mean?"

“I can, yeah,” she says. “We had a bit of a rough patch, like we said, after Sochi. I kind of messed up there and he…wasn’t well. _We_ weren’t well. But we sort of…patched ourselves together again and last summer, we started talking about coming back. About, you know, doing it again but doing it right this time. So it would be about us and on our terms and we would properly enjoy ourselves and surround ourselves with a really good team and…just, try again. Without all the heartbreak and more…honesty. Sincerity. Less pretending and more _being_.”

“And how do you feel that’s going?” He follows-up, sounding patient, like an old uncle.

 

Tessa eyes him, sort of warily, because they both know that she’s given him the press conference answer so far. “Okay? Yeah, I think it’s going okay,” she says and commits to more honesty where she sits, trying to be true to those big ideas. “I’m struggling, a bit. I mean, you’ve probably noticed. My meltdown the other day wasn’t exactly subtle.” (He chuckles at that but lets her go on. And really, somehow in the last week it had only gotten worse because for some reason, Scott had been even more sweet and even more attentive than he was anyway and so nice smelling at the rink as if he'd just kept on leaving the deodorant off permanently and made sure to be close enough for her to notice it whenever he could. Needless to say her steady decline into madness was not slowing down a bit.) “I mean, I’m sure you know that I have feelings for him. He knows it, too. I’m pretty sure half of the country knows. And I don’t want him to see other people, I want him to…well, franky, I want _him._ But it’s difficult with us, has always been. I’m still not sure what’s real and what’s not, sometimes. How much of us is just…facilitated from outside and what is genuine. I don’t know if…I don’t know, sometimes I’m not sure if Scott really, I mean, if he really wants me or if he just wants this version of me that’s built around him, so to speak.”

 

“Well are you? Built around him?” JF asks. 

“Like you’ve scientifically explained to us, apparently, yes,” Tessa almost laughs. “But I’m still more than that, you know? I’m my own person, I have my own thoughts and my own desires and we’re so different in so many ways in this. I was never quite sure how I fit in into this whole Tessa-and-Scott thing. You know, it sounds weird but for so much of my life I was listening so hard to what he needed from me that I kinda drowned out my own voice. I really did need to figure myself out after Sochi. I didn’t just say that to him for the heck of it.”

“I understand,” JF tells her calmly. “You don’t need to defend yourself with me.”

“I’m not trying to,” she states, hearing and diminishing the defensive inflection in her voice before she goes on. “I’m trying to… _explain_ it.”

“Are you angry at him?” JF says, when she was just taking a breath to go on and throws her off her carefully arranged talking points.

 

“I’m…I don’t…know that I am,” she says. “Maybe? I was angry at him for a long time after my surgery. But that had so much to do with the fact that we’d slept together and I’d had that crazy idea that he could be…that _we_ could be, something? And he just never acknowledged that. I don’t know if I’m angry at him _now._ I’m probably angry at myself. Because I’m not stupid, you know? I see where this is going. I know that, somewhere in the future, it’s him and me. I probably always knew that but I don’t know how to get there, how to get over myself and this…this stupid wall in my head. I don’t know where to start.”

 

“Well, let’s start with what we have,” JF suggests. “You strike me as someone who’s really analytical, probably to a point where you think a little bit too much about possible outcomes, which is natural for very intelligent people, especially very intelligent _women._ So what we can do is break it down. And start in the here and now. Wait a sec,” he says and then brings his bag up to his lap to produce a sketch blog, opening it up in front of her and handing her a pencil. “Why don’t you just write down Scott’s name and break it down for me. How are you packaging him?”

 

“Oh, I think I compartmentalise a lot,” she says, rolling the pencil around between her fingers thoughtfully. “I feel like there’s…I don’t know, a Scott box for when we’re doing our job and a Scott box for when we’re not.”

“Draw it,” commands JF and so she does, pencilling two squares neatly aligned with the corners of the paper and writes ‘Scott’ in both and underneath, into one box _On-Ice_ and in the other _Off-Ice_ , nice and tidy. 

When she is done, she looks up at JF for further instructions and he nods, tapping the sketch book with his index finger.

“No write what is special to one or the other,” he says. “How you’re compartmentalising.” 

 

Tessa thinks for a while, pondering with what box to start and then decides on the off-ice box, liking the structure of this, the scholarly approach. It’s fits her, somehow. She’s always liked sorting things, packaging them. From her oldies mixtapes, to the books on her shelf, to her competition packing, she liked creating order from chaos, liked making sense of things so when she returned to them, she wouldn’t have to think or look long to know what was what. Everything would be just where she’d left it, just so, just simple and easy to navigate. Everything the rest of her life (read: Scott and their relationship) was not.

 

So she begins, her handwriting neat and pretty because she’s thinking through every word she puts down. _Cooking_ , goes in the off-ice box. _Watching Netflix_ , too. _Talks. Dance-Parties in the kitchen. Carpool-Karaoke. London/Ilderton. Family. Home. Attention. Reassurance. Fun. Being there for each other. Loyalty. Friendship. Safety._

She glances over the page, thinking that for now, she is good with that one box and has to start with the other so she can get a clearer picture of what might be missing from the first one. And boy, is that immediately another picture. 

 

For the on-ice box, she doesn’t have to think _half_ as much, she just writes and writes. And after the first thing she puts down ( _Discipline_ ) the other words just follow on a roll, like a waterfall, one toppling right after the other, as if she was playing Tetris with them.

_Training. Working. Dancing. Creating. Outlet. Energy. Abandon. Drive. Will. Strength. Intimacy. Tension. Kissing. Hugs. Closeness. Immediacy. Romance. Touching. Feeling. Fantasies. Trust. Longing. Wanting. Desire. History. Adventure. Danger. Adrenaline. Competition. Struggle. Desire. Communication. Laughter. Secrets. Intimacy. Passion. Forgetting myself. Freedom. Excitement. Travel. Winning. Exploring. Discovering._

And then she pauses, just for a moment…and puts down _Love_ , too. And in the other box, because that seems a little empty now in comparison, she adds _Future_ , although she isn’t quite sure why that should go in this box. 

 

Anyway, she feels like she’s done for now, so she puts the pencil down and glances up from where she’s bent over the book and turns it around so JF can see. Given, it’s not that _she_ doesn’t see the pattern clear as day as well, but he’s gonna see it now too, and probably draw the same conclusions she has. And even if she hadn’t thought about it quite in this way before, what it spells is really obvious.

“That is… _phew_ ,” JF says and nearly shakes his head at her. “Honestly, I was expecting to have to work a little bit harder on you for that. But that is pretty clear, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Tessa says, feeling her cheeks blush because on that page is her entire behaviour of the last couple of months explained, obvious and startling. 

 

There in black and white, between the lines of words she had sorted into each neat little box, it says this: On the ice with Scott, she lets go, she chases after him, after that feeling she gets when he holds her close. She teases, because she can, she cuddles, because it’s safe there, all under the guise of working, of pretending, when really she is everything but. That on-ice box is why she doesn’t want him to see other people, why she was so loathe to see “Too Much” get taken off the table, why she felt like a short-circuiting light bulb, switching from wanting him to pushing him away erratically, insanely. And that on-ice one is packed so tightly, it’s threatening to spill over into the off-ice one. Which is basically what is happening in her life, not so much a metaphor as a _representation_. And she hadn’t really seen it that way before but now she does. The fact that is so obvious now: Her compartmentalising is simply failing. Because that box where she’d tried to sort everything that was about wanting or needing or loving Scott as more than a friend is _leaking_ , uncontainable anymore. 

 

“I haven’t thought about it this deeply before,” Tessa tells JF, faced with the revelation. “And I was thinking about it a _lot._ But, I don’t know, it felt sort of more mundane before, more manageable. I still felt kind of breezy the last couple of weeks, sort of like I was living a movie or something. _This_ ,” she lets her hand over over the sketch book. “Looking at it like this, it feels huge now. Like, dramatically huge. This scares me.”

“I think this has been scaring you the whole time,” JF says. “You just weren’t so aware of it. But you were reacting and acting according to your fear anyway. People, when they’re scared, they either lash out or they withdraw. The classic fight or flight response. You’ve done both recently. And pretty specific to those boxes, too. You fight on the ice, you go after what you _desire_. And see, you actually put desire down twice there.” 

 

He points at the doublet and Tessa follows his finger, finding that he’s right. (And she kinda hates that it had happened to her but she really loves psych exercises for that. _This is so loud_ , she thinks to herself. _How did I miss this?!_ )

 

“But off-ice,” JF continues, moving his hand to the other box, “you flee. You block that whole huge other part out. And there are so many essential things in that other box. And I get it. You’ve put down ‘safety’ and 'home' here, off-ice. And that’s what that box is, really. That stuff is all safe, all harmless. You don’t risk anything in that box, you don’t risk yourself. In the other one, there is ‘abandon’, there’s ‘danger’, ‘intimacy’ and ‘love’. That’s stuff that scares you, that’s stuff you could lose yourself in. Where you could lose _control._ ”

 

“It’s also where I’m most vulnerable to Scott,” Tessa muses, whole-heartedly agreeing with everything JF says and joining in on his psycho-analysing of her, down to matching his removed tone (she knows exactly as it’s happening that she is doing it again, the compartmentalising, that she’s putting distance between her and her very own feelings by treating herself like Tessa, the patient). “This whole on-ice box, that’s _really_ Scott,” she continues. “That’s what he makes me  really feel. The off-ice, that’s…that’s my safe, best friend I’ve had for eighteen years. But the on-ice one…that’s the man that I…” She lets the rest of that fizzle out into oblivion, tracing the words in the on-ice box with her fingertips gently.

 

“The man that you _what_ , Tessa?” JF asks quietly after a while. “Say it just once, you’ll feel better.”

“The man that I love,” she sighs, forlornly. But she really does feel a little bit better, so she says it again. “I love him. And not just like a friend. I _love_ -love him. Like I-wanna-grow-old-with-him-love him. I’m _in_ love with him. I love Scott. I. Love. Scott.” (Woah, that _had_ felt really kind of freeing.)

 

“So, how was that?” JF asks and she looks up from her drawings of boxes and catches his eyes as they twinkle with her ‘admission’ (which is really not much of anything new, but still). “Wasn’t that hard, right?”

“No,” she agrees. “But you’re not him. I don’t know if I can say that to _him._ ”

“Why not?”

 

“Because I’m scared,” she says. “I’m terrified, really. You know, what if…what if I tell him and we try and make this work and then he realises that I’m not all that fun in a relationship? What if someday I somehow stop being this perfectly fitted to him? If I decide that I want to do something for myself that he’s not into, you know…in the future, after this comeback. What if I get a job in Paris to design clothes for the National Ballet? And he wants to coach in Toronto? What if I can’t have children? And he wants them so badly, Jean, he wants kids so, so badly one day. What if he wakes up one morning and just…doesn’t love me anymore? If he gets bored of me or meets someone more outgoing? Someone extroverted who doesn’t get exhausted by being around people all day? And what if _I_ don’t like _him_? The way he is in a relationship? What if it turns out that I _am_ angry at him for the way we grew up and I can’t get over it and slowly start to resent him? What if we fight and don’t make it work and we break up and we can’t be friends anymore? What if I lose him? I can’t…I couldn’t…”

 

“Tessa,” says JF softly, his voice’s cadence a colour of calming that tells her she is spiralling. “What if you _fly_?”

“What?” She asks, eyes snapping back to him from where they had drifted in her fretful monologuing. What does flying have to do with this?

“It’s a poem by Erin Hansen” he tells her and recites, glancing off into the distance. “‘And you ask, ‘What if I fall?’ Oh, but my darling, What if you fly?’” He looks right back at her, reminding her of Casey when he’s trying to dole out big-brotherly advice. “Do you really want to spend your life not going for what you want because you’re afraid it might not work out? Tessa, that’s not you. And I haven’t known you that long, but I know it isn’t. You moved here for a comeback that might not work out. One of you might as well fall and break a leg two weeks before and you’re still here.” JF shrugs apologetically and has the grace to knock on the wooden table himself. “My point is, you can’t ever know what happens. There are _no_ guarantees. Nothing is promised, not even tomorrow. I mean, honestly, let’s take this to the dark place. You could _die_ tomorrow, you could step out on the street and get run over by a truck. And then, when you stand at the pearly gates, would you be happy that you played it perfectly safe with your friendship with your skating partner or would you want to come back down here and try for a life with the man that you love?”

 

Instead of answering him, Tessa puts her elbows at each side of her cold coffee and buries her face in her hands. Because he’s right. He’s obviously right.

 

“I don’t think you need to be so afraid,” JF says, slowly, when she remains silent. “And this is breaking confidentiality a little bit but I honestly don’t think that he’d mind. Tessa, he’s crazy about you. You know that. And I think…no, I _believe_ that he is optimistic enough for the both of you, he’s… _ready_ enough for the both of you. He’s so ready, he’s literally just waiting for you to make a move, to take that step. That’s what he said, that’s what we talked about last week. Tessa, that man…he adores you. He’s not going to fall out of love with you or wake up and find you boring one day. I don’t think that he _can_ , that he is physically able to do that.”

 

Tentatively, as if she was a little fox coming out of her fox hole, she raises her head out of its hiding place in her palms to study her therapist (who was just being wildly unprofessional there but she can’t find it in herself to judge him for that). 

“He said that?” She asks him.

“And more,” JF nods. “Just talk to him, Tessa. Just go to him and talk. Hell, we can cut this session short, we’ve got barely fifteen minutes left anyway and you can leave right now. Just go home and…take the plunge. Be brave. I don’t know what platitudes you need to hear to get your butt out of that chair. Go forth and conquer? I don’t know. Give it a shot. It’s _worth_ it.”

 

“Fine,” Tessa says and can’t really believe her own ears, let alone the fact that she seriously means it. 

 

With her body pumping adrenaline through her veins the second she makes the crazy decision to actually listen to her therapists advice, she springs into action. The hormones kick in, hot-wiring her system, have her rise to her feet, grab her bag from where she’d slung it over the back-rest of her chair and she feels flushed hot all over, ready to _fucking_ go. Saying a quick goodbye to JF, paying her coffee at the front, calling a taxi as well as riding that taxi home goes by in a whirl of nerves and anticipation and technically, her session should still be going when she exits the staircase in her building but on the wrong floor and barges right on to Scott’s door, running on electricity and a kamikaze-kind of determination. She knocks, harshly. Three quick reps to make sure he hears.

 

The sudden, blasting stillness of waiting for him him to open up, however, catapults her buzzing body into a frenzy without an outlet for the excess nervous, terrorised energy coursing through her like a charge and the panic that had somewhat been subdued before by blind activism crashes back into her system full throttle. 

 

And she _can’t do this._  

 

She almost laughs. Oh God, this was so stupid, she can’t do this at all. How did she think she could do this? Damn JF and his breeching of client privacy. Damn him and his encouraging words, his twisting her mind with that “Imagine you’d die tomorrow”-horror vision. The only way she’ll die tomorrow is if she goes through with this stupid, stupid, headless, uncalculated farce of a plan. What is she even gonna say? No. No, no, no, no. Nope, she’s not doing this. She’s not.

 

Fast enough to give herself whiplash, she turns around, huffing and shaking her high ponytail, setting it bopping from side to side as she marches right back to the elevator. She’ll just go home and pretend this never happened. She’ll just…draw a bath and soak until she forgets what year it is. Yes, that sounds sensible, that is just what she’s gonna–

 

“Tess?” his voice comes hard on the heels of the sound of his door opening and she freezes in the hallway, facing the elevators with her heart dropping to her feet. “You’re early. You didn’t answer my texts, so I thought you’d still be a while. Hey, kiddo, turn around, maybe? I’m kinda talking to you here.”

Ever so slowly, she does turn to him, trying to keep her face impassive, but judging from the shift in his features, she probably looks just as insane as she feels. This was _such_ a mistake. 

 

 _You’re such an idiot, Tessa, you’re so, so_ stupid.

 

“Is everything okay, T?” He asks her carefully, looking a little worried and a lot wonderful. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She says nothing, just stares at him, sensing that her eyes are crazy just from their faint reflection in his, even in the dim light of the corridor.

“Well, anyway,” he says, kind of weirded out. “I made dinner. The salad from the meal plan and some of my potatoes, with rosemary, the way you like them. And I started drawing you a bath but because you’re early, that might still be a while, so–”

 

Scott never gets to finish that sentence. Because then she’s _kissing_ him. She hadn’t even thought about it, just lunged forward, just forward, forward, _forward_ , until his lips got caught under hers.

 

Because he’s the sweetest man she knows and she _loves_ him and he’s cooked for her and prepared a bath for her in his tub and she _loves_ him. And he’s being kind and considerate and wonderful just because. And she. _Loves._ Him. He is wonderful to her just because it’s her and it’s him and this is what they do now and he’s…he’s kissing her back now and thinking suddenly gets hard. Even more so when his hands close around her body, the way she’d day-dreamed so much about in the last half year. About how he would pull her in and deepen the kiss, just the way he does, right now, prying her mouth open with his tongue and sighing into it, smiling against her lips.

 

She hadn’t even begun to imagine that he might run her into a wall (the concept of where this were to happen had always been hazy) but she likes it now that he does. God, she likes it so much when her back hits the hard surface of the wall behind her and he rolls his entire body into hers now that it has nowhere to go but take his pressure, take his hip's thrust like a sweet promise of “ _later_ ”. 

 

Sweet Jesus, and his hands are everywhere, roaming, _feeling_ , and it’s all she can do to just hold on him as they do, one hand buried in his hair, the other one digging into his neck. He moans softly when she scratches him there with her fingernails, not even trying to tease him, just to find some purchase for herself. And then after a moment or a couple of hours, she has no idea, he breaks away and it takes a while until she comes half-way back to herself and opens her eyes.

 

He is staring at her, all bulging and seeking, darkly-hungry, wild eyes and tousled hair from where she’s ran her hand through it. He’s breathing almost as hard as her, panting and trying to even that out so he can say something. He touches her face, stroking her cheek with little grace as if he, too, just needs something to hold onto for a moment.

“What was that for?” He asks her under his breath, sounding as if he’d just ran a marathon.

“If I get run over by a truck tomorrow,” she tells him, equally as winded, “I don’t want to have not done this while I had the chance.”

 

He tilts his head at her on almost a nod, trying to maintain their connection, trying to get a read on her (or potentially strip her out of as many clothes as he can in his mind’s eye), but his gaze keeps dropping to her lips and Tessa’s breathing gets even more laboured about this, if that’s at all possible.

“Is it okay if I…,” he says hotly and already gets closer, his eyelids fluttering closed. She barely hears the rest of his question over the sound of her blood rushing past her ears. “…kiss you again?”

She wouldn’t have needed to hear it anyway, because she closes the gap between them this second time as well, just when his tongue had rolled over the ’ _n_ ’, soaking in that _kiss_ until she forgets what year it is.

 

They go on like this, kissing like love-crazed teenagers in the hall, soft and languid and drinking each other in with selfish delight. _Precisely_ until the moment when Scott curses heavily and reminds them both that the water is running in the bath. 

 

(They prevent flooding his entire condo by a hair.)

 

A little ways away, in another part of town, Jean-François Menard checks his phone and see’s that it’s exactly 5:00 PM, the official end of Tessa’s session. And he wonders if she actually went through with it. If she’d actually went over to Scott’s to tell him how she feels. It’s really quite unprofessional to be this openly invested in his clients private lives…but goddammit if he can help it. So he’s trying not to be ashamed of it. Now that would be a lot easier if he could only tell his wife about it.

 

And s _he would love this_ , he thinks wistfully. _She would absolutely eat all of this up._

(But who is he kidding, really, because so does he. So does he.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I'm so sorry. I don't know what is happening. This fic, man, it just wants out.
> 
> Thank you for being patient with me and sticking by! I love all of your thoughts and encouragement..and it evidently helps me write like a maniac :D so thank you all, endlessly!


	8. ...Doubts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! 2 things!
> 
> 1) This is the longest one so far and it literally took me forever to write so I really, really hope you like it as much as the last chapters!!  
> 2) It's literally 4 AM in the morning where I am and I want this chapter out but cannot, for the life of me, edit this thing before tomorrow, so please, please, please forgive all the many mistakes that will be in there, I will get rid of them all in time.
> 
> I hope for now you enjoy the rough version below :)
> 
> MEGA thanks again for fairwinds09 for being my sounding board for this and letting me put her words in JF's mouth, she is a true gem!!
> 
> PS: If you wanna listen to a tango reading this chapter for some reason..here it is: https://open.spotify.com/track/7wGc5C1U1Z241pMWzGGPMC?si=Wx-tZJy2QdWwgBnXxH_FVA

Thursday, 4:01 PM, August 4th 2016

 

Scott’s eye catches on the fresh flowers in the vase, the petals of the off-white peonies fluttering slightly in the breeze from the open window. Tessa had bought those flowers for JF's office under the guise of being nice but really, she just wanted to win their mental prep coach over to her side and it was frankly laughable that she thought he didn’t know that. They’re sitting not half as far apart as they should and the temperature inside the office is a startling ice-cold, especially compared to the booming 31 degrees outside of it. Scott wrings his hands, still so grimly settled in the silence that it sounds like JF is screaming at them when he starts to talk.

“So,” he asks.”How are we feeling today?”

 

Tessa-and-Scott, in sync as ever despite it all, both stay mum. And Scott really doesn’t want to be the one to start talking because he’s afraid that if he opens his mouth, he’ll say something wrong (because apparently, he’s an irredeemable asshole and _everything_ that he says is wrong anyway) and he’ll bring on another slew of glaring absurdities, courtesy of one Tessa Virtue, on himself. And he really doesn’t think he can take much more of that before he blows up, honestly.

Still, Tessa won’t budge either (what a surprise!) and he knows her well enough to know that she, for one, can go with only the most perfunctorily communication for days. So it ends up being up to him anyway.

“We’re fighting,” he declares matter-of-factly and watches JFs easy smile change into confusion.

Because that’s unexpected for him. (And doesn’t Scott know it, it was unexpected for him, too.) 

 

Mostly because this week had been…a _dream_? A dream that had started precisely last Thursday, at approximately five o’clock, when Tessa had knocked on his door and somehow decided to kiss him. He’d been completely floored but in the best way. The second of triumph where he’d thought his strategy of upping the ante on his attentions to her had finally broken through her resolve passed and was swept aside the moment she had wound her hands into his hair. Then, everything else had just faded to pure, unadulterated pleasure, to mindless enjoyment of the wonder that were her lips on his, moving unhurried, exploring, re-acquainting, greeting each other in that perfect unity, in that seamless fit of their bodies around each other after going without it so long. 

 

Then, of course, he had remembered that he was likely just in the process of flooding their entire building because a couple of life-changing eons before, he had set the water running to pour her a bath. They had hurried back into his condo and spent the subsequent hour trying to keep the water that had run over the brink of the tub from soaking into the hardwood floor of his hallway and opposing bedroom. They’d managed, barely, without having to confess the ruin of property to the landlord and by the end of it, had settled on his couch and had dinner, watched an episode of some show he hadn’t paid a minute of his attention to and kissed some more. 

 

He’d been so deliriously happy he hadn’t really known what to do with himself. She was finally there, right there with him, kissing him, holding him, telling him in not so many words that she felt the same way he did. And in true romantic movie fashion, he had believed that that would have to be it. That they’d figured it out and would now skip cheerfully hand-in-hand into their happy-ever-after. But as very par for the course for them, obviously it was never going to be _that_ easy.

 

At first though, he was fooled easily enough. She’d excused herself eventually so they would both get enough sleep for training the next day and he’d said they were going to do something fun over the weekend (which they had, going bowling together like twelve-year olds) and they’d kissed some more. Kissed hard and fast and slow and light and every which way in between all throughout the week and Scott was fine, more than fine, obviously. 

 

He’d been soaring ten feet above the ground when he’d walked her to her door and kissed her in the doorway, or when they had a second alone in an elevator somewhere and he leaned down to her just because he could. Or when, on four of seven nights, he’d gone over to her apartment to slot himself on her couch or her bed and get lost in her proximity, fist his hands into her hair and let loose on those delicious lips of hers.

 

It was just that on the last of those four nights, which had been yesterday, shit had kinda hit the fan. 

 

And okay, maybe he was kind of maybe a little bit to blame for the start of it. Because, yes, he had been a monumental dick, reverting back so very unflatteringly to the days of very ugly, very egocentric and fucking clueless teenage-Scott Moir. (To be a little bit fair, they had been going at it for about two hours in her bed at that point, rolling around, messing up her pristine sheets, getting all of their clothes, their hair and their…yeah, why not, fucking hormone levels in complete disarray. And he’d been positively crazed out of his fucking mind for her, okay? This just as a piece of factual knowledge getting into this.) 

 

So, as it stood, stupid, clueless teenage-Scott Moir, –much like a-little-less-stupid-late-twenties-Scott Moir– had always loved sex, specifically sex with Tessa Virtue and after a week of having that be a prospect of the not so distant future (what with the fact that they’d been making out like horny fucking teenagers for basically six days straight), he’d kind of been hopeful to go there and get some.

 

Only that the second the hands that had been rummaging around underneath her shirt had started to fiddle with the front clasp of her bra (and who wears a front clasp, T,  seriously?!), she had positively slapped his hands away, pried them off from her body and had sat up, effectively pushing him off of her harshly, with little regard for his pants situation or his general feelings.

“No,” she had told him, panting, her lips swollen and red from kissing and her pale skin gleaming a lovely, rich pink, which had not fit together with refusing him and thus not fully computed. His dick certainly hadn’t got the message (and since that’d been at the steering wheel of his actions at that point, well…it had been bound to become very un-pretty very quickly.)

 

And yes, maybe, _definitely_ his reaction had been severely shitty as expected and honestly not his proudest moment (and for the record, he had gone on to apologising for it sincerely about seventeen-hundred times once that had sunk in), but in the moment, ill-advised as it was, it had unfolded as it had, which went as follows:

Scott, very much not in the full possession of his wits (since most of the blood that is usually there to power the “good-decisions”-area of his brain had been downstairs, coursing through his achingly pounding, very aggressive boner for her), had veritably pouted at her and tucked at her shirt impatiently, pulling at the fabric, stretching it upward to reveal the creamy firm skin of her flat stomach underneath. Gosh darn, she was so hot and he wanted her so, so bad.

“Come on, T,” he had slurred, drowsy and nagging (and even the faint memory he has of it makes him cringe with shame now in retrospect). “Don’t be such a tease. _Come on_. I know you want to.”

 

And it was a testament to just how little blood was left in his brain that he’d not seen immediately that he’d had fucked up royally. 

 

BUT…and that was and is the point of the matter: While yes, he is fully ready to concede that that had been borderline pushing and pressuring her and absolutely _not okay_ , what came after, the things she’d said to him, had been very much just as _not okay_ as that. 

 

And so they’d fought, in her bed and then in her living room and then via text after she’d thrown him out. (His boner  remained undeterred by the way, which had been the sad low point of his night as he’d stripped down to take a shower when Tessa had already gone radio-silent and furiously jerked off, spluttering his shower walls in the slick, dripping evidence of his lack of common sense).

 

Yeah, Wednesday August 3rd, 2016, not his his best night. And he’s still paying for it, not only with what Tessa had said to him after but also with the cold silence she’s been taxing him with all day. Of course, on the ice she’d spoken, the way she was bound to and only people who know her for as long as he did would have known that something was off–but he’d gotten through pretty much a year of this after her first surgery and so he knew…he _knows_ he is in the dog house. But that is just _fine._ Tessa’s in the fucking doghouse, too. He’s put her there himself.

 

Because he’s pissed at her just as much as she is pissed at him. And oh, is he ever pissed. For a multitude of reasons and he honestly believes he has a good right to be. (Also it’s not helping that he’s spent the last six days being blue-balled to all hells and right now, it certainly doesn’t look like that’s ever going to change, so add just another level of fucked-up to his general state of mind at the moment.) He feels the anger course wild and boiling through his veins, rumbling on low like a current underneath every breath he takes, about to unravel at the tip of hat. He’s had half a mind to skip on the session today for fear of escalating the situation but then Tessa had muttered something under her breath, quiet and vile, that had sounded like “typical” and so here he was. Ready and set to explode, like a keg of dynamite in a Road Runner cartoon.

 

“Why are you fighting?” JF asks, voice even and his face back to not betraying any emotion as neither of them offers up further information. 

“Because,” Scott starts, eventually (‘cause if Tessa won’t talk, he sure as hell _will, damn her_ ), “the person who is supposed to know me best out of anybody on this planet, obviously has no idea who I am.”

 

Tessa huffs contemptuously beside him and sits up straighter, sharp and quick, like an arrow ready to pierce several hearts. “I said I didn’t want to have sex last night and he was an ass about it,” she snaps.

“That’s _not_ why we’re fighting! Don’t make it about that,” he warns her, his gears already firmly ground (and for as much as he loves her, there’s really no one on earth who can get him quite as riled up as Tessa). “I said I was sorry.” (He had, as mentioned before. About seventeen-hundred times, each one of those sincere and with appropriate grovelling.)

 

“But, since you brought it up…,” he starts, just frustrated enough to come out with a new angle of looking at yesterday’s happenings. And he’d held it back before because he knew it was somewhat immature but with the way she glares at him from the side, all self-righteous, judgey appraisal, he really doesn’t care anymore. “I’m sorry, but how exactly was I supposed to know that that’s suddenly not happening anymore? Because I seem to recall that we sat on _this_ couch two weeks ago, talking about how we both very much _did_ want to have sex with each other.”

 

Tessa opens her mouth as if to argue but then thinks better of it as she damn well should. Because she knows he is right and so he goes on, practically fuming: “Plus, _you_ kissed _me_! You came on to me. And I didn’t fucking jump on you last Thursday and I barely did anything yesterday…after we had made out for _two_ hours, consensually by the way, in case you’ve forgotten. So yeah, I really don’t know how I could have gotten the crazy idea that we were maybe gonna sleep together.” He snickers and she looks a little bit sheepish, which he likes but not enough to linger on it. 

“But that’s not the point,” he declares, to both his partner and their mental prep coach. “The point is what you said after.” 

 

“I was trying to communicate my emotions,” Tessa says tightly, lawyer-like, and looks sternly at the peonies in the vase on the window-sill.

“The hell you did,” Scott exclaims, slapping his hands down onto his knees and rocking forward on the couch until he is perched up on the edge. “Saying that I’m gonna get bored of you after we had sex is not ‘communicating emotions’. That’s fucking _insulting_ me.”

“That’s not what I said,” Tessa argues, even if Scott is pretty sure that’s exactly what she had said.

“You called me a flake!” He nearly shouts, because that he absolutely remembers in perfect clarity. He turns to JF, waving an arm around and then pointing at her: “She called me a _flake_!”

 

“Because you were!” And now Tessa has finally turned her body to him, obviously ready to really go into it, and man, so is he. _Bring it on, Virtch, I’m pissed off enough for three of you._ “In all of your relationships, save for Kaitlyn maybe, you were a flake. I was there, remember?”

“And why do you think that was, huh?” He asks, jumping on it. She holds his stare with fire in her eyes but he matches it, glimmer to timber, and leans forward, testingly. “Don’t you think that was maybe exactly _because_ you were there? And I always wanted you so much more than any of the others? And Kaitlyn! I was fucking drunk for half my relationship with her to forget that I still wanted you anyway. Because you _left_ me. You flaked on _me_!”

 

“I told you a million times–,” she starts, he cuts her off.

“That it wasn’t about me, it was about you, yeah I get it. I get it, okay?” He hollers. “But you’re still being unfair. _This_ isn’t fair, what you’re doing. I’m not a fucking flake. I am here. I have _been_ here. I’ve been right here, for eighteen years and I’ve stuck with you through every thing.” And he slowly gets more and more animated, leaning farther into her space while her lips disappear into her frown. 

 

“I could have taken a shitload of money back then and just changed partners when you were gone, T,” he tells her and maybe it’s a low blow to bring that up but it’s about time she heard this from him again, just to refresh her memory. Just so maybe she would realise who she was calling unfaithful and unsteady here. “I was offered actual hard cash to walk away from this partnership and I didn’t. I didn’t even consider it, it wasn’t even a question, not for one second. Because I’m not a flake. I could never flake, not on you.”

 

“You don’t know that,” she declares. And that’s _it._ Oh yeah, that’s fucking it, _Tessa Virtue._

“Oh, but you do?!” He scoffs, his tone mock-congratulatory. "So _I_ don’t know what I’m gonna do or not do with you after eighteen years together but _you_ do? And you can look me in the eye and tell me you’re afraid to have sex with me because once you do, it won’t be interesting for me anymore?! You _know_ that?! God dammit, don’t do that,Tessa. Don’t talk about me like you know what I’m gonna do when you don’t know. It’s not fucking fair.”

“See? See!” She yells, waving her hands in his face dramatically. “We’re already fighting!”

“Because you’re being completely unreasonable!” He yells back, almost on a higher pitch than her.

 

“Well, that’s me, okay? I’m an irritating mess! So sorry I can’t be more accommodating!” She snickers bitterly and then shifts into another, equally as infuriating gear not missing a beat. “But you, you can’t even listen to me without blowing up, look at you, you’re shaking, you’re so angry! How do I know you’re not gonna throw in the towel once this gets hard?!”

And that’s again so wildly unfair, he wants to scream.

 

“Because I do!” He practically does scream. “I _know_! And I’m still…damnit, I am still right here! I haven’t left, I haven’t ran, we’re fighting and I’m still in this fucking room, fighting with you. And I _do_ listen to you, you’re just not making any sense.” He really, really wants to shake that thick-headed stubbornness right out of her but since he can’t do that, he tries a different way to make her understand. He tries to appeal to her rational side, the the one he hopes is still underneath all that hard-faced armour of hers.

 

“Look, I get wanting to take it slow, okay?” He attempts. “I understand and that’s fine. I get that you’re still mad about the Kaitlyn-thing and whatever, maybe even the surgery-thing still and you can have that, okay? I am so sorry, I really am. And I will apologise to you for the rest of our lives if that’s what it takes, I’m fine with that. I’m not too proud to admit that I fucked up.”

 

No movement in her face except a slight tremor in her eyebrows, which is more than he’d gotten out of her in the last five minutes, so he takes that as his cue to continue. "And I know that I fucked up last night. I was a grade-A douche, I know it and I’m fucking sorry for that too. But you can’t expect me to know when one of your over-thinking, crazy-fantasy-head concoctions is gonna fuck me over. You can’t be mad at me for not being able to read your damn mind!”

“But I had to read yours!” Tessa sputters, suddenly riveted and leans further into his space for a change, making him lean away from her again. (It’s a tug-of-war with her, always a tug-of-war.)  She shoots daggers into his skull with her eyes, fixing him fiercely. “Since you were nine years old, I had to read your damn mind, Scott. Every day.”

 

 _Great, this again_ , he thinks.

 

“No, don’t you dare roll your eyes at me!” She barks immediately and taps him on the leg to bring his wandering eyes back to hers, fury dancing behind them. “I tore myself apart for you. Do you even know what an asshole you were to me growing up?” 

“Yes! Yes, alright!” He huffs, waving his arms around because he can’t seem to keep them still. “And I hate myself for it, every day. But I never asked you to do that. I never–“

“If I hadn’t done that we wouldn’t be here today,” she interrupts him. “We wouldn’t have lasted _one_ season together. And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. You don’t…I’m not…I don’t know if you even like me like this. I mean look at us, the second I don’t do exactly what you want from me, we’re at each other’s throats!”

 

 _She’s not serious? She’s not_ fucking _serious, is she?!_

 

“Woah, woah, okay, hold up! First of all, I will not stand here and be painted like I’m mad at you for not wanting to sleep with me, that’s…that’s so wrong and such bullshit and you know it!” He says, getting that bit out of the way first, because he’ll be damned if that’s the kind of man anybody (worst of all Tessa) thinks he is. “And second of all—so yesterday you say I’ll flake on you because, what? The thrill will be gone once I got you into bed again like I’m a crappy teen-movie asshole-jock and today I don’t _love you_ for who you are?!”

 

Tessa holds his glare sternly, not giving him anything to show him that that’s not what she’d been saying, which is honestly the worst. It’s…devastating really. It threatens to dip his anger right over into misery, actually. And that can’t be what she believes of him, it simply _can’t._

“Do you even have any idea…do you have any idea how much I love you?! _You_ , Tessa, not the version of you that you think is all pliant and catering to me, because _newsflash_ , that version is crap, it doesn’t _exist,”_ he says emphatically, and leans forward again, into her space. “I know you. I can see through all of your mitigating and mellowing and walking away until I calmed down. I know you had to sponge up a lot of my moods growing up and I treated you like shit half the time and I’m not proud of that but I’m sick of you acting like I was some kind of wall to you or like I was just shouting and you were taking it. I’m not Marina.”

 

She glares at him. Great, more glaring. But she’s not getting off with that, nope, she’ll have to listen to this because it’s about damn time he told her. 

“You were not just _reacting_ to me. I was reacting to you, too,” he says. “I was catering to you as well, I changed and bent myself just as much as you did to make this work. And I might not have done such a good job at it because I’m a guy and a fucking idiot but you didn’t just suffer through me for eighteen years. You changed me, too. I have feelings, too! I’m not the foil in your narrative, Tessa.”

 

He half wants to take her hand for emphasis but he doesn’t, knowing that if he touched her now, he’d be lost but he still brings his hands up, if only to move along with his words as he goes on: “I know when you’re mad, I know when you're tired of my crap, I can see every last little muscle move in your face and I know what it means and I acted accordingly just as much as you acted according to me. And you never let me get away with my bullshit ever. And I love that. I fell in love with that when I was seventeen years old and I never fell out of it. And that’s you! That’s all you. That’s not…you have no idea, no idea how much I completely and totally love you.”

(If he had a smidge more distance from this entire thing, he would really appreciate the humour in the fact that he is declaring his love for her while looking and sounding like he’s throwing a slew of insults at her head, but alas, he’s too close to it, too enraptured. And he really can’t get out of his head right now.)

 

“Every last little thing,” he continues. “Even this! You drive me _insane_ and I don’t like you very much right now but fucking hell, I _love_ you. And I can’t believe, I literally can’t fathom, how you can think that I don’t. After everything we’ve been through, after _eighteen years._ That I could walk out on you. On this…because I’m suddenly _bored._ How can you know me that little? How can you _trust_ me that little? To believe that I would…that I _could_ ever do that to you?”

 

And if his speech did nothing else, it at least shut her up. She sits there, opposite of him and watches him regulate his breathing back to normal. He huffs out a breath. Okay. That helped. He already feels a little better, having said what he said. Having it out. And to his surprise he finds that he genuinely really wants to know what she’s got to say to it, even if it’s in disagreement but Tessa doesn’t give that to him. She just sits there. And looks at him.

 

“Okay. I’ll just jump in here for a second,” JF says and it’s the first time in a while that Scott remembers where he is. That there are other people in the universe but him and Tessa in their own weird little world. JF studies them, with what must be scientific curiosity, then crosses his legs and sits straighter. 

“This is obviously a lot to unpack,” he states (which is fair). “So from what I gather you two have finally decided that you want to make this work, correct?”

“Yes,” Scott says firmly, because that is out of the question. And at least he hears her say it, too. Right in time with him.

“Okay. And then last night,” JF picks up, reconstructing their undoubtedly convoluted conversation, “Scott tried to initiate sex and you, Tessa, said no.”

“Yes,” she affirms emotionless. 

“Because?” JF asks.

“Because she-,” Scott starts but JF holds a flat palm up to him and shoots him a glare.

“I asked Tessa,” he says and Scott feels called out like an unruly child. But holds his peace all the same.

 

“Because I am worried that he might not feel this way about me anymore once the chase is over,” Tessa says and Scott could still groan at the stupidity at this assumption but he refrains, trying to be a good boy.

“How did that come about? Was there an inciting moment for it?” JF inquires. “Something that happened?"

And this time Scott really has to say it before she can act like it hadn’t happened: “She googled it!”

“I read an article about it,” she corrects him, sounding prissy.

“Because you googled and went looking for something to scare you!” He turns his head back to her and finds her watching him, thin-lipped and displeased.

“I did not,” she says to JF while still looking at Scott.

“What was it about, the article?” Their therapist asks, as he was bound to.

 

“I was researching some of the things we talked about here, about the biology and everything,” Tessa says, her voice on her way back to normal but she only ever so slowly takes her eyes off of him and turns to address their coach. “And there was an article I just _stumbled_ upon about dopamine and habituation to highs and it was about gambling but it said that people gamble because ‘maybe’s’ and near-misses are way more exciting than actually winning or achieving something and so when we win a lot or when we like, take drugs to get hammered, we get used to that high and our dopamine levels sink once we finally got that thing we wanted or taken that drug or whatever and then we’re used to it and it gets boring and we want something better or crazier or a different slot machine or a worse drug. And thats true, isn’t it?”

 

And Scott isn’t sure that he understood all of that or if she means what he thinks she means but he’s pretty sure she does. She’s afraid that she’s like a slot machine to him (she’s the goddamn casino) or some gateway-drug (she’s pure heroine and crack and meth and morphin and he’s definitely addicted but she’s the be-all-end-all when it comes to drugs for him, that much is sure). And she’s worried that once he’s had her, he’ll get used to her (which honestly, if he isn’t used to her by now and he really, really isn’t, he doubts he’ll ever get used to her in his life). He wants to tell her all of that, even with his residue anger at her, but then JF is already talking again.

 

“Habituation is a thing, yes,” their mental coach says, focused on Tessa. “But I’m, not sure that this is a hundred percent applicable to human pair bonding or romantic relationships. I also don’t think that’s really the reason why you got worried.”

She stays still, like a mouse and there is some sort of silent communication going on between the two of them that Scott is immediately, irrationally jealous of and which tells him that they have talked about this. That JF knows something about Tessa that he, Scott _doesn’t_ know. (And that really annoys him a lot more than should be okay.)

 

“What is the real reason you got worried, Tessa?” JF pries and Tessa exhales on a grunt and looks at the peonies again. 

“Because I know what it feels like to finally get something you’ve been chasing after forever and feel _nothing_ ,” she says and Scott is almost a little relieved because he had known about that (S _uck on this, JF, I still know her best_ , he thinks), because once upon a time Tessa had told him how empty she’d felt after winning Worlds in 2012, even if she’d worked so so hard to get there.

“And could it be that you’re projecting here a little bit?” JF asks, still at it with the unpacking.

“Maybe,” Tessa replies and then loops Scott back into the conversation with a lingering look. Only to go straight back to trash-talking him. “But Scott does get bored so easily. And he _was_ flakey with all of his girlfriends. _He_ broke up with all of them eventually.”

“For you,” he reminds her, an impatient strain on his voice once again. “I broke up with all of them for you. Let’s not leave that bit out.” 

 

“But what if you get bored of me once _we’re_ in a relationship?” Tessa says, at it again with her bullshit and Scott climbs up the anger scale from three right up to seven again.

“Tess, we’ve basically been in a relationship for years,” he huffs. "And I’m not bored. It’s been eighteen years and I’m not bored of you. And we’ve been practically living together since we moved here!”

“But we haven’t slept together,” she remains. And _honestly, woman._

“Well, then let’s go home and have sex right now and you’ll see that it’s not gonna change anything,” he yelps and he means it. He’s ready to. He’s ready to lay her down on her bed (or his, he doesn’t really care) and make love to her with his hands and his mouth and his body and wake up in the morning to do it again. And again and again until she believes him that he’s not planning on going _anywhere_ , ever again. “And it’s not like we haven’t _had_ sex before, Tess, in case you’ve forgotten. 

“Exactly,” Tessa bites and there’s a flicker in her eyes that tells him she thinks she’s got him beat. “And after, you got together with Jess and then Cassandra.”

 

And look, okay, he knows what that must look like to her but that’s really not what it is at all! Still, he can’t really say anything in his defense at the moment.

“So you can understand my hesitancy,” Tessa says, a self-satisfied kind of ‘told you so’ ring to her  voice that he really doesn’t like right now.

“Tessa, you gotta trust me if we want this to work,” he tells her. “Back then, that was…different. “

“How was that different?” She challenges.

"It just _was_ , okay? I _wanted_ to be with you, that’s what matters,” he says, trying to just move on quickly from this whole line of investigation (because he barely understands that whole thing himself if he’s honest). “It was always you, don’t you get that?” But Tessa obviously doesn’t, ‘cause she falls silent at this yet again.

 

“Tessa, are you also worried about you guys fighting?” JF jumps in, using the silence before it has a chance to get awkward. 

“I don’t like it when we fight,” Tessa says.

“I don’t like it either,” Scott echoes. And really, he hates it. Fighting with Tessa is crippling. Like he’s only half a person.

“Are you afraid Scott will leave you because of a fight?” JF asks Tessa and Scott perks up, turning fully to her, upper body and all, to hear what she’ll say.

“A little,” she admits.

“That’s bullshit,” he blurts. “Sorry, it is. We’ve _had_ fights before. Bad fights. And I’m still here. I’m literally still right here.” (When will she stop acting like he’s ran out on her at any time in their career?! He hadn’t, he goddamn hadn’t!)

“Are you afraid fighting will impact your skating?” JF asks, both of them this time because he looks at Scott, too. He scoffs and shoos the question away with a wave of his hand as if it was a pertinent fly.

“We’ve always skated,” he says. “We’ve skated through way worse than this. This is nothing.”

“It’s not _nothing_ , Scott,” Tessa admonishes, all clipped and…girl-ish.

“God, T, you know what I mean,” he says, rolling his eyes. And anyway, this “unpacking” is bullshit, They’re not moving an inch. (But he doesn't say that.)

 

“Scott, looking a bit at what you said earlier,” JF says, maybe sensing his loss of interest in this whole process of rehashing stuff instead of trying to make it _better_ and engages him again. “Your point is that you’re not angry at Tessa for refusing to sleep with you but you are offended that she believes you could walk out on her after she’s, let’s say…put out and that she fears you might not love her for who she really is.”

“Yeah,” because that is _exactly_ his point. “‘Cause that’s literally…that’s…I don’t even know what to say. If that’s really what she thinks then I don’t know, like, I don’t know how I can win then, ever. If she doesn’t believe me that I love her, then what can I do.”

 

“I wanna believe you, I just-,” Tessa says and it’s almost a whine.

“Then _believe_ me.” It’s really not that hard!

“It’s not that simple,” she sighs. “You don’t know…I don’t know what is real about me or not, I don’t know if the person you love is _real_.”

“Tess, ‘if she’s real’?” he repeats, words thick with exasperation, sometimes she was just so exhausting in her constant need to analyse everything into the dust. Stuff that didn’t even exist, that didn’t even have to be a problem until you made it one. “What does that even mean? She’s here, so she’s real. You’re here and you’re you and if you wanna change, change, I’ll still love you just the same.” He thinks he might try that declaration thing again, maybe twenty minutes later, she’s now ready to hear it. 

 

“And if you want _me_ to change, then I’ll do it,” he says, softening his voice as much as he can considering how wound up he still is. “Just tell me what you need me to do and I will. I’m not married to _this_ ,” he moves his hands in front of his body, up and down, to indicate his whole thing, that Scott that she knew, and how little he cared for that Scott to remain as is if it caused her so much pain. “Tell me what you want me to be and I’ll be it, I’m serious, I don’t care. If you’re a bird, I’m a bird, T.” (And surely she must appreciate the Notebook-reference?) “Whatever it takes, no matter what, I love you. And I wanna make this work. I don’t know any other way to show you that I’m in this for real. I’m all in. Screw competitions, screw the fucking Olympics, the reason I came back is to be close to you again, to live through all of it with _you._ _For_ you.”

 

He inclines his head to her, trying to ignore the fact that he’s a too-deep breath away from actually starting to cry and hopes that this, at last, was finally enough to convince her. And at least her eyes seem a little softer now, a little warmer around the edges. He leans in, hopefully. She takes a deep breath and—

 

“You don’t understand,” she says.

And just like that, he’s back on anger-scale ten. Barely keeping the lid on an explosion.

"No, _you_ don’t understand,” he bellows. “How can you sit there and say shit like that to me? Honestly, Tessa. Listen to yourself! Do you even want this? Because right now it sounds like you’re just looking for a way to back out again.”

"No, I do, I want this, I…,” she stutters and then falls silent and seriously, he can’t do this. He really can’t do this with her again, to get his hopes up like that, to actually let himself believe in a future with her and then having her change his mind on him _again_. He can’t, he simply can’t and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Well?” He asks her, terrified and angry and _terrified._  

 

“Guys, stop, just stop, okay?” JF intervenes sharply from the other side of the coffee table and Tessa and Scott both snap their heads to him. ( _Yes please, Master Menard, save us from ourselves._ ) “This is not productive,” their therapist notes. “You’re going in circles and now you’re going off on a red herring, Scott and you’re steamrolling her. She's arguing that you might love the version of her that she created for you, and you’re taking that as her running off on you again. But it's two separate concepts and you’re conflating them into one, and you’re oversimplifying the issue of her identity and that’s not fair.”

Scott half wants to pout and argue but because he respects the hell out of Jean and really doesn’t want Tessa to leave him, he stays silent and nods sheepishly instead.

 

“And Tessa,” JF starts and it does make Scott a little happy that she’s going to get a talking-to too. “Scott has been very open and vulnerable with you today and you have not acknowledged that you have heard him once, that’s also not fair. So we’re going to try something else. You’re gonna tango this out.”

 

Wait, what? What’s that supposed to mean? Tango this out? Does he want them to actually go through the whole thing again? There’s barely ten minutes left in the session, how are they gonna do that?!

 

“I’m serious, on your feet, both of you,” JF says and gets up, walks over his desk and takes out a CD that has “Cirque de Soleil” on the cover, gingerly manoeuvring it out of the plastic. “Go by the door there. Come on,” he orders, pointing vehemently on the free space between the back of their couch and the door. And he obviously really wants to make them dance now. “Dance it out, I’m not kidding, leave it there.” JF continues, putting the CD into a player on his book shelf behind his desk. “Communicate. Right now it’s not working with words, we’re gonna try a language that you actually both speak.” 

 

He gestures to the floor before him and perplex but not unwilling, Scott finally gets up, followed by a completely dumbfounded Tessa, who looks at him like for once everyone else but them is insane and when he puts her in a dance-hold, that sliver of camaraderie with her feels like a breath of fresh air after having been in a bunker for years.

 

And then the tango starts, a somewhat generic, generally angry sounding one and yeah, that’s fair. Scott knows what to do with that. He starts slow, letting Tessa ease herself into the weirdness of the situation, dragging her a bit and letting her kick her feet, once, twice, experimentally before tightening his grip on her waist and starting to lead her into a circle, searching and finding her eyes.

“Romantico,” he says to her under his breath and she understands, letting what little they remember of those off-ice tango-lessons from years ago seep back into their bones. “Yes,” he growls when she brings her leg up high around his torso and bends down into a stretch with him, cradling his face and scratching the skin just below his ear. They’ve still got it.

 

The song segues into a piccicato synth-plucked-string-segment that sounds like it was literally programmed on a potato but Scott doesn’t mind. He’s dancing and he’s angry but a little less so every time he throws his head around and his arm up and every time Tessa leans into him and even smiles once because the situation is so absurd. And then, somehow, eventually, his anger is fully gone, dissipated and forgotten, as if it had never been there.

 

This works. If nothing else between them was ever easy, dancing is. Dancing is like breathing and they fall back into the rhythm of it with ease and sensuality. She lets herself be lead, be guided, glares and smoulders at him and brings her face to his, close enough to breathe her in and there’s Tessa again, the girl that he’s known since she was six. And she is real and wondrous and original. And definitely not just an imprint of him, the negative mould of Scott. 

 

She takes charge, too, pouring herself into the fiery rhythm, working through her own anger until it’s on the cusp of something very different and he can’t help but pull her closer, lifts her, once, twice and brings her back down again, close so that she glides down his body and whispers “I’m here” as he sets her down. After a few minutes or an eternity of this, already panting and his forehead set into a dance-frown, he dips her. Low and dramatically and she hangs there, balancing in his arms. He gazes at her, forlornly, breathing hard and not from exertion. It’s all still right there. The desire, the trust, the awe and the love, just as he’d left it before he got pissed at her. And judging from the look on her face, Tessa has just made that same discovery. He smiles down at her, ever so slightly, welcoming her back to the comfortable, staked and mapped out, safe kingdom of Tessa-and-Scott, and props her back up.

 

“So,” JF says and clears his throat, thumbing the CD out. “You get to say one thing to each other now before the session is over. Choose wisely.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Tessa says instantly, running her fingertips over his shirt collar with the hand that isn’t still holding his. 

“I’m sorry, too,” he replies gently, holding her gaze, letting her back in and it’s like her green eyes bring the flood, setting their connection back alight again, clearing the pathways and letting the calm wade through the bond like soft morning fog. “We can take it slow. The sex, the relationship, everything.” He says, like he should have in the first place. 

 

“Whenever you’re ready, Tess. There’s no rush. We got time.” And really that’s all that they need. A little time and a little space. To figure this out. And he really can wait. If she doesn’t feel safe having sex with him yet, that’s fine. He’s in no hurry. He’ll wait. And kiss her if she’ll let him and be content with that. It’s a non-issue. It’s just the start of their life together, he’s got all his life. Only one thing still remains, the question if she wants to work on it too, if she is willing to wait it out with him, if she’s got all her life, too. “I want to make this work. Do you?” He asks, glancing down at her hopefully.

 

And she nods, smiling softly back at him.

“Then do you think, you can trust me with _this_?” He catches that wandering hand from his collar and puts it on her heart, squeezing her fingers until she squeezes back. “Because I trust you with _this_.” He says as he brings her hand in his over to his own heart. So she understands. “You’re everything to me, literally _everything._ Do you think you can trust me on that?”

Tessa nods again and that smile on her lips turns into a grin that he can’t help but return.

He’s nearly kissing her when JF bellows from where he stands at his desk.

 

“And thank you for that!” He exclaims. “Class dismissed. Homework is to dance until you can get through this conversation without yelling. And Guys, please, before you break this thing off again in the heat of battle, call me, okay? You two have a real shot to do something great here. Try not to blow it before you even had a chance to try.”

 

“Scott?” Tess calls him once they are out in the cool, murky hallway outside of JF’s office. He stops in his tracks and turns around to her. “Hold me?” She asks him and he does, within seconds. When she talks again, it’s already muffled by his chest. “I really am sorry. I know I’m not making any sense. And I heard you in there, I really did.”

“Tessa, do you want to do this?” He mumbles into her hair, rubbing patterns into her back softly. “Us?”

“Yes, yes, I do,” she nods against his chest firmly.

“Then we’ll do it. We’ll figure it out,” he promises her easily and kisses the top of her head. “Baby steps. It’s okay. I’m here. I _will_ be here.”

With a little wiggle, Tessa leans back in his arms, so she can look up at him and it’s seven days later in another hallway and it’s another first kiss that they’re sharing. 

 

He dips down, slowly laying his lips on hers and drinks her in. She melts into his frame, breath falling into his and he brings his hands up to cup her face, just so, soft enough to bruise. He lingers there for a long while, kissing her deeply and reassuring until he finally breaks the kiss with a peck and puts another one on her forehead. 

“We’ve got so much time, babe,” he whispers and somewhere her hand on him grasps a piece of his shirt. His gaze drops back to hers and he thinks it might be there already, the reflection of his feelings for her. The scope of it. Because maybe once she loves him as much as he loves her, she won’t ever have to worry again about him ever leaving her. Because then she’ll know that he couldn’t. Not ever.

 

“I love you,” she tells him evenly, giving words to her eyes and he feels like singing.

“And I love you,” he says. “So much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so how are you? Do you need to sit down? Some therapy?
> 
> (I hope the mistakes weren't too bad and you still had a good time along on the couch with JF and T and S, I sure have a good time with you in the comments below, I'm always so deeply happy about every last one, so thank you for standing by me :)


	9. ...Sex (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even more processing for Tessa and Scott and even more not sleeping for me! Ha! But this is so worth it.  
> I am having so much fun with this story and all of your feedback to it, it's literally like crack!
> 
> Thanks and shoutouts go out the the magnificent fairwinds09, who has taken over beta-duties for this chapter, to reader toomucherin for letting me borrow a bit from her mindset for Tessa in this instalment and pre-emptively for thatonekimgirl who will go through this chap in the comments and find every mistake I have missed in my perpetual sleep-deprived state and subsequently save me from writer-shame.
> 
> You are all rockstars!

Thursday, 4:04 PM, August 11th 2016

 

In the second week of August, Tessa, Scott and Jean-François have their first official relationship counselling session over Skype. The _first_ ever mental prep session over Skype had happened on Tuesday (with a skip on Monday because JF had been busy) and was a raging success. Mostly because Tessa and Scott were pressing him about the Summer Olympic Games in Rio di Janeiro where he was currently at, excited and bubbly like little kids. They’d talked so much about what the atmosphere of the Games was like, equally reminiscing their past Games and getting excited about their next, that they hadn’t even graced the personal side of things once (as JF usually would, just for a second before every regular session to just take their temperature). 

 

But now, firing up her laptop as Scott slumps down on the smart dark-grey lounge-couch in her Montreal condo, and anticipating another round of relationship-assessment, Tessa really has no reason to complain. Since that very unpleasant session and subsequent make-up the Thursday before, they have been doing great. Courtesy, of course, of the way JF’s ingenious dancing exercise helped them get it together. Given she been startled at first by the idea and the brief initial awkwardness of dancing in a tiny room with exactly one spectator and everything Scott had said to her still flurrying around in her head. But as soon as they got into it, she’d unfolded into Scott’s arms and had started, somewhat without realising it at first, to process it all, getting into his skin as he spun her around and began to see his side of things. And after...well, you could say many things about Scott Moir but he had never been one to pass up a chance to do _better_. And he had. 

 

He’s been even more attentive that last week than before, if that was at all possible and even now, as the connection to their psychologist a continent over was established with that Skype bell-sound ringing, he has a hand on her shoulder, gently but firmly massaging out the knots in her muscles from gym earlier. He doesn’t drop it either when JF’s face appears, tan from the sun in Brazil and smiling hello.

 

“So how’s it going?” JF says with that ‘The session has begun’-tone after they’ve quizzed him again on how the Games are unfolding. “To be honest, I was really happy to see you guys steady on Tuesday,” he says, not waiting for their answer. “How’s this transitional period coming about for you personally since last time?”

“Better,” Scott says confidently and beams at her, she can see him grin from the corner of her eye and it warms her entire body. “We’re taking our time. Talked over last session.”

“A lot,” Tessa adds.

“Yeah. Without yelling,” Scott supplies and Tessa has to smile.

 

No, they hadn’t yelled. Mostly they’d whispered. Tangled between her sheets on Friday night and his on Saturday, almost forehead to forehead. Gently and patiently, going through everything again and again, daring each other to be more honest, more vulnerable and more forgiving. And rewarding themselves with soft, slow kisses for every centimetre of progress.

“And have you…okay, there’s no tasteful way to ask this, so I’m just gonna…,” JF starts and Tessa already knows what’s coming because she can see the blush on his face all the way from South America. “Have you had sex yet?”

 

“No,” Scott laughs and his fingers dance on her neck, probably a little bit from queasiness, having to talk about this very private thing. “But that’s alright. We actually agreed that it would be the smartest thing to first work through this before we distract ourselves with sex.” He scoots a little closer to her and she can’t help but turn her head to him then, locking eyes and falling into them, just a little. He holds her there fast as he speaks, husky and raw. “Because once we get started on that, we’ll be a while. And probably not in great shape to _think_ so much at all.”

 

“That sounds sensible,” JF says, effectively reminding Tessa that he is still there and that they’ve got work to do. “Actually in that vein, I’d like to make sex the topic of today, specifically sex with other people and in that context your previous relationships, if you feel comfortable talking about that. I thought that would be smart to also look at bit into what Tessa perceived of your flakiness with your ex-girlfriends, Scott, and also to see if maybe you, Tessa, have a little bit of baggage from your previous relationships that were not with Scott, too. Is that generally alright with you?”

 

They both nod, because _why the hell not_? JF has pretty much heard and seen it all from them at this point, so why not go the extra mile and walk through this with him tool. After all, it’s all part of the process and B2Ten really is paying him _a lot._ So he might as well settle in and listen to them talk about Scott’s exes (because hers are really not much to speak of).

“Awesome,” smiles JF at his suggested course of action being accepted. “Just first, I’d like to have twenty minutes alone with each of you guys, to walk a little through last week’s session because I think there are some things we should still be mindful about that when moving forward. I’d like to start with Tessa, if that’s okay. Scott, you can just…take a stroll round the block, get a coffee,” JF flips his wrist up to look at his watch, “and be back at four-twenty-five?”

 

“Sure,” Scott shrugs and turns to her. “You’ll be fine, right?” She nods easily and smiles at him, contentedly. She’s really okay and she doesn’t mind working through last week some more. She’s ready for it. And Scott mirrors her expression warmly and pecks a brief kiss onto her temple with a domesticity they kind of fell into like breathing (that she loves so much she could cry, honestly) and gets up to leave. “See you later.” He says once he’s gotten his wallet from his messenger bag and her keys from the door and bends down from behind the couch to be visible to JF in the laptop camera frame as he waves. And then he’s off.

 

“So,” says JF from her laptop once they’re ‘alone’.

“So?” she echoes.

“So, I reviewed my own behaviour from last week a little and I think I owe you an apology,” he starts out and she tilts her head at him quizzically because she doesn’t really follow. He doesn’t make her wait for an explanation. “I should have jumped in there sooner when you were arguing. He was pretty all over the map in the beginning of the session and I feel like I should have intervened there faster. I would like to apologise for that.”

“No, you don’t have to,” Tessa says quickly and means it. “That’s _Scott_ , that’s just how he gets. I can handle it.”

“Ah yes, but that bothers you, too, right? That you have to and have _had_ to handle him so much through your life?” Jf asks her and just like that, they’re smack dab in the middle of a therapy session.

 

“It doesn’t bother me so much as that it makes me a little bit tired sometimes,” she answers evenly, surprised at how much more at ease she is now and can’t really tell if it’s because by now, she’s kind of warmed up to JF, or because she and Scott had spent so much time last week going over everything again. Either way, she can talk freely now, and that honestly feels so liberating. 

 

“Scott and I actually did talk about everything again and he does have a point, you know,” she continues, cluing her therapist in to a bit of how they’re _Virtue-Moir_ -ing their stuff while he’s not looking. “I always see myself as this big, kinda sponge to him who absorbs all of his, like up-and-down emotions, but he wasn’t wrong in that he does the same for me as well. Just not on that level because I’m just more consistent emotionally, which is okay. That’s just how we are. But he does attune to my moods, too. It’s not a one-way street. And I think we…we had a little bit of breakthrough the other day because he kind of understood why I was, why I _am_ worrying about the possible outcomes of taking the next step.”

“And why is that?” JF follows-up, like he gets paid to.

 

“Because he’s just like that about skating. We just never made the connection,” Tessa replies, still quite pleased with their discovery as she recounts it (while simultaneously wondering how it took them this long to see the parallel). “When we’re on the-ice and he’s going through the programs in his head, he goes off into a million different directions at once. Like remember, he said that on Tuesday, when we went through the new cues for the Prince medley? And so after we hung up, he like, looked at me and he was like: I get it now. Like, he said he could come up with seventy different ways he could muck up that program and they were all equally as scary and realistic and then if he does that, he panics. And that’s what I do when I think about our future. And he didn’t see that before but now he does. So I think that really helped a lot to make him see where I’m coming from.”

 

“That’s good! That’s great, Tessa,” JF exclaims and seems legitimately joyous about it. “It’s great that you recognise the little victories and celebrate this progress. You’re doing good, even that session last week and how strenuous it was, it was good progress!”

“We do listen to you in our talks, you know?” Tessa quips but is still sincerely touched by his encouragement.

“I know, I just wanted to positively reinforce,” he tells her but then switches gears again, because obviously he still feels like she needs to unpack a little bit more (and maybe that’s fair). "How did you feel during that session?"

“Overwhelmed,” she answers honestly and finds that yes, she really would like to talk through this a little bit more—and maybe precisely with someone who isn’t Scott. It’s nice because it’s just about her now. No other feelings to take into account, just her and her very own experiences. “Yet also kind of…fierce? Like I think I held my ground and said what I wanted to say. But it was a lot.”

 

"Yeah, I had a feeling that you were struggling a bit,” JF muses, leaving her the space to elaborate at her own pace and waiting while she gathers a response.

“I was,” she begins after a moment of getting her thoughts and feelings in order and translated into proper sentences in her head. “‘Cause it was intense, you know, and out of my comfort zone. I really don’t like fighting with Scott and we don’t really do it all out like that a lot, so it’s always kind of fresh territory. We probably fought like that three of four times in our lives. And when I feel like I’m not measuring up to what he expects of me or to what I expect of our relationship, that rattles me.” 

 

“So where’s your identity in that? Do you feel that Tessa feels like that or that Scott’s Tessa feels like that?” JF inquires.

“ _Scott’s Tessa_ ,” she repeats, mulling the term over in her head. “Hm. That’s a funny way to put it.” And maybe it fits best, after all, for that concept she has in her mind of it. “I don’t know. I guess the fear of not measuring up to his expectations is just plain _Tessa._ Because he doesn’t…he’s never disappointed in me. He’s so supportive and he holds me so high, like…being afraid to not be good enough, that is all me. He doesn’t facilitate that, if anything, he works against that whenever he can.” (At least nowadays he does.) 

 

“He didn’t always,” she continues. “I mean he never accused me of anything but when we were younger he got mad when things went wrong. And I always thought that was about me, about something that I did. But…I probably wouldn’t have thought that back then if that hadn’t been inside me before either.” 

“And that’s probably congruent with the fear of him moving on to more exciting things after he’s quote-unquote ‘won’ you, would you say?” (And doesn’t that man just ask the best questions? He’s such a good therapist! _Thank you, B2Ten, for that gem of a human!_ )

 

“I think so, yeah,” she answers. “That’s half Just-Tessa and the other half experience. Because I’ve seen him grow tired of the girls he was with like _that_ ,” she snaps her fingers to illustrate what she means. “Like…it was worst with Jess and Cassandra, the others he went through when we were growing up didn’t even stick around long enough to talk about but that was another thing in itself. He’d just go through…like, being all over them one day to not texting them for a week when we were at a competition. He and Jess broke up all the time and then got back together and then broke up _again_.”

 

Tessa stops, thinks for a second because she has briefly lost her trail over trying to count in her head how many break-ups and get-back-together’s of Scott and Jess she had witnessed and settled for...maybe five. And alright, where was she?

“Cassandra,” she says as it comes back to her. “Cassandra was…honestly, I don’t know what _that_ was about. She was just a slightly hotter, less complicated version of me, I think. At least, I definitely thought that back then…and so he preferred to have sex with her over me, I guess. I don’t know.”

“You were jealous?” JF asked, his voice so monotone as if to not sound too assuming, she almost has to laugh.

“Of course I was,” she tells him emphatically. “I was jealous of every last one.” And here comes the blunder, a thing she would never have told JF just a couple of weeks ago, having heard what it sounds like in her head: “He’s mine you know? That’s what I feel in my bones. And I know that’s not right and you can’t own people. But…Scott…he belongs to _me._ That’s how I feel. I can’t help that.”

“Is that Just-Tessa or Scott’s-Tessa feeling that way?” JF asks, instead of commenting or –at least visibly– judging her territorial possessiveness over her best friend-slash-business partner-slash-love of her life.

“Both. I think,” she answers and doesn’t need to think about it. 

 

“You know, Tess, I think we’re on a good track with those questions.” JF muses after a moment of considering her. “I think we should make that an exercise. Can you…monitor your own choices and decisions and how you feel about things a little bit in the near future and keep a log of what you think is inherently _you_ and what is maybe coloured by that version that you suspect of accommodating Scott? If we do this for a couple of weeks, I think we should be getting somewhere in terms of defining your identity for yourself. Because to me, that is the biggest struggle that Tessa Virtue has right now, personally. Not even in regards to this partnership with Scott…but for you, as a human being. And that chips away from your mental strength. Which I know you have in spades. And that’s just a shame.”

“I absolutely can do that,” she says and already ponders where to go and buy a nice little notebook to document her progress. “It’s just hard to be sure. I feel like I don’t…I don’t know who I am _myself_.”

 

And here’s a thought, she thinks she has to share with JF: “But then Scott looks at me and he’s _so_ sure of who I am and I really do believe him that he loves me. I’m just afraid that he’s loving a lie. That I’ve fooled him somehow,.” And there’s the guilt. “That I fooled _me_ , and once it comes out who I really am, he’ll hate me and leave.” _That would be irrationality_ , she tells herself, tracking her thought process as if she was her own psychiatrist, letting that inner counsel come up with the bottom line: “And for me personally, I’m just still a little afraid of not being a full, round person outside of him. And I spent a lot of time trying to make sure of being just that after Sochi but then he just…you know, I just went right back to him. And here we are.”

 

“But now you have made the decision to be with him,” JF questions, squinting his eyes a little bit at her and she shifts on her couch a bit at his scrutiny. “How does that fit together with wanting to define yourself outside of him?”

“Well, because I _love_ him,” she shrugs, her tone saying ‘duh’. "No matter who I would maybe have been without him in some parallel universe, I still love him in _this._ And I nearly died watching him move on with Kaitlyn. Seeing that future where he would settle down with someone else…and I can’t bear that thought. It honestly makes me sick to my stomach. So, _whoever_ I am…that person loves Scott Moir. And I’m not stupid enough anymore to deny myself that because I think that I have to. I want to figure out who I am separately from him from right next to him…which is probably why I’m so worried about what I might find.”

 

“Well, then it really comes down to trust,” her therapist surmises (which is a conclusion Tessa herself has drawn last week as well.) “Like Scott said.” (That, too.)

“I know. We talked about that,” she says and hopes that JF is a little bit proud of them for doing their homework so diligently. “Scott’s trying really hard to reassure me. And I appreciate that. He’s committed to this and I recognise that, you know and I’m working on getting better at acknowledging it, too. He fully wants to give me space and room to figure things out and he’s understanding and patient…and he’s been a saint about the sex, really.”

 

Tessa ponders for a second if she should go on or if that would be a little too TMI, even for her therapist, but then what gets her to go through with it is the thought that Scott had been so ashamed last week about having pressured her and that she’d brought that into the session with them after he’d sincerely apologised a dozen times, and so she wants to clear his name. Wants JF to know that outside of that brief lapse of judgement and sense, Scott is so respectful and so honouring of and careful about her boundaries and getting consent and making sure to not do anything with her that she doesn’t want.

 

“He brings me back, you know?” Is how she starts telling JF about that. “When we, you know, when we…like, make out now. I probably would’ve slept with him already to be honest because it’s hard to stay away from him but he just…he grabs me by the shoulders and he asks me if I’m _sober_.” She laughs, like she had the first time Scott had asked her this, serious as death. “In like a mental kind of way, you know? Or if I’m just…well, _horny_.” She shrugs. And so far, after he had demanded honest soul-searching, she had not been sober enough for it. “So we’re waiting,” she says. “And I’m not quite there yet. But I think I’m getting there. Anyway, he’s so great about it now. And he won’t stop saying sorry for the first time when he pushed. He really feels horrible about that. So, that’s just for the record. He’s always been so respectful and he’s usually never out of line, ever. Always asks for consent, even to kiss me.”

“He’s a good man,” JF says, matter-of-factly.

"He is,” she wholeheartedly agrees.

 

“And you’re a good woman,” JF states intently. "You’re a _good_ person, Tessa. You’re worth the wait and the effort he makes. We both know Scott’s already right there in that mindset but you need to know it too. You are valuable and your feelings are valid. And you deserve to be loved and to be heard and considered. You deserve to feel respected and safe and it’s okay to demand that. And Scott might tend to run hot in conflicts but he’ll get better at that, he’ll work to get there.”

 

JF takes a breath, looking at her vehemently like he is making a very important point: “Scott, he needs a little more time to learn how to properly process before reacting in a confrontation, but he will. And then you’ll be right on track for honest, good and open communication. Like, that could be unparalleled. It’s still a process but we are getting somewhere. And that’s good. That’s great. That’s both of you putting in the work. Just like you do on the professional side. You’re a good team. You will make this work, I’m sure of it.”

“Thank you,” Tessa tells him. “I appreciate you saying that.”

 

“Always,” he replies. “And for you, you know, I think the key point in this process of defining your own identity within this relationship –where he is a part of the factor for your insecurities–, will be adaptability. Just like we talked about in our Mondays and Tuesdays. Like the bamboo tree.” 

 

 _Ah_ , the bamboo tree analogy, the one JF liked so much to bring up in their mental prep sessions. The point being that bamboo trees are extremely durable, that they can grow a meter in a day and that they bend when under pressure, not snap. That they’re flexible and withstand storms and weather everything. And that they should adapt that bamboo-mindset, which makes sense, both on and off the ice. (JF on his part likes that analogy so much, on their third athletic prep session he had given each of them a little pocket-sized print of bamboo trees and told them to put them up somewhere they walked past every day to remind them to _be like the bamboo tree_. And she had done just that, which was why there is now a picture of bamboo on her bathroom mirror.)

 

“It’s a process and you may face adversity,” JF goes on. “You might have conflicts with Scott, you will likely have some struggles to deal with by yourself and battles to fight with your own mind. But the key is to stay flexible, to take stock of things regularly and bend with the pressure if need be. And –you know, I’ll give the same advice to Scott when he comes back in a moment–, I also think you should get some solo counselling as well.” He pauses and taxes her to gauge her reaction to his proposal. (And isn’t it funny how even a psychologist seems to expect that she could be offended by him suggesting she goes to another one for herself? She hates that, how there’s such a stigma about seeing a therapist. She’s spent half her life in counselling, this is no outlandish or shameful proposition to her.) 

 

“If you’d be interested in that, I can give you a list of recommendations for people that could work with you separately,” JF continues when she smiles at him evenly. “‘Cause it’s important that you feel at home in your identity, Tessa. Not just for this comeback or your romantic relationship with Scott but for you as a person and the rest of your life.”

“Yeah, that…that’s probably a good idea,” she says.

“And you know, maybe to start out the search of who you are or if there are two separate Tessa’s, maybe you can ask some people who’ve known you before you knew Scott,” JF suggests and Tessa has to laugh, snorting and altogether pretty ungracefully.

“Ha, well that’s a pretty small circle of people,” she grins. “I mean, I can’t honestly really count myself there because I barely remember my life without him.”

“Well then people who don’t know him much but know you,” JF suggests and a key turns in Tessa’s lock behind her. “And ask them what they think makes Tessa, _Tessa_. I think you might get surprised.”

 

“Surprised by what?” Scott asks, closing the door behind him awkwardly as he balances a tray of Starbucks coffees and a paper bag as well as his wallet in his left hand.

“By you ever not _snooping_ ,” Tessa teases and watches him put down the bag and wallet on her sideboard and carry over the drinks to her.

“You were talking about me, weren’t you,” he asks, rounding the couch to sit down beside her and hand over the coffee. “Flat White,” he tells her and then turns to the screen at their two-dimensional mental prep coach. “Hi Jeff.”

“Welcome back, Scott,” the other man grins and has already lost his client’s attention by the time he finishes saying his name.

“It’s beautiful out, T, you should go to the canal,” Scott tells her.

“I was planning to,” she grins and then snaps forward to kiss his cheek. When she does, his free hand shoots up to keep her close as he whispers slyly into her ear the way he does after a great skate on the ice sometimes: “There’s half a muffin in the bag by the door. That’s for you. Nobody needs to know.”

 

Tessa breaks out into an ugly guffaw of a laugh and her heart grows another three sizes with love for him and is still beating arrhythmically when she scrapes the last bit of that blueberry muffin from the paper with her teeth, remembering his breath hot on her skin as he’d whispered and gazes over the Lachine canal like a love-struck pre-teen. Her eyes catch on the reflection of the bridge in the softly lapping stream and she takes a moment just to breathe, feel the sun warm her skin and mull over what JF and her had talked about in the last twenty minutes. Then she considers his idea to ask some people who should know about what makes her special, what is particular to Just-Tessa and not Scott’s-Tessa. And because she has never been anything but a model student, she clamours for her phone in her shorts’ pocket and calls her mother to start on her new task.

 

Kate answers on the first ring, probably because her daughter doesn’t usually call this early and she’s worried. “Tessa, honey, hi,” her Mom says. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I was just…I’m just at a break from mental prep and I was kind of encouraged to call you about something,” Tessa says.

“Oh dear,” her Mom mutters, sounding alarmed. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, totally. It’s nothing bad, just…we were talking about identity and stuff, about _my_ identity mostly,” Tessa answers, trying to make it sound as non-concerning as it is so that her mother doesn’t freak out unnecessarily. “And how I’m still struggling a little bit with kind of knowing who I am outside of Scott and I’s relationship especially now that we’re…” She almost says ‘together’ but that’s a can of worms she has not opened up to anybody outside of Scott, JF and Marie-France yet (who had not been told but knew anyway). “Now that we’re coming back,” Tessa opts for instead and continues. “And so our psychologist suggested I call you and ask you, you know…how I was before Scott. Or how I am now, when I’m not his…his skating partner.”

 

“Well…where do you want me to start?” Her mom says, an affectionate grin very audible in her voice and then she starts on her own, talking a good five minutes at length about Tessa as a child, about how determined she was, how eager to try new things and be the best at them. How very stubborn to catch up with her older siblings but also how kind to them, how willing to make compromises and make people happy even as a little girl. How she had always been more of an observer in social situations, learning how her siblings interacted and slotting herself between that. How she would take half a day studying and then copying everything Jordan was doing and effectively driving her older sister insane with it. And how she always, always sought to create balance and peace and order to situations when there was none, may that be kindergarten spats or her toys after an afternoon of playing.

 

After that, her mother lists her defining qualities as a person from when she was about ten to right now, starting with A for attentive, through D like dancer, _great one_ and O for organised, ending with Z for zealous. There is no mention of Scott in there, either, not even by implication. The person her mother describes sounds whole. Which is, honest to God, a pretty huge relief.

 

“You know we always tried very hard, Alma and I, to make sure that you two have identities outside of skating,” Kate muses after she is finished rattling through her list of attributes to describe her youngest daughter. “But maybe we should have paid a little more attention on making sure you knew you had identities outside of _each other_. Is it hard right now, sweetie?”

“No, no, not at all,” Tessa hurries to reassure her while still cataloguing all that she had said, planning to put all of it into that notebook of all things _Tessa_ she is going to buy. “Things are great. Scott and I, we’re doing great. We’re just…working through some things. But it’s good. It’s a process. We’re good, Mom." 

 

“Good. You sound good, too,” her mother is attesting her. “Only a _little_ tired. Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Yes, Mom,” Tessa drawls, folding up the muffin paper as well as she can with her one free hand.

“Is Scott getting enough sleep?” Kate asks.

“How would I know?” Tessa says, quickly, and congratulates herself for her expert and quick-thinking covering of the bases. “I think so.”

“Tell him to get some sleep if he isn’t,” her Mom says and sounds like _his_ mom. “And tell him to call his mother, she is complaining to me that he hasn’t been in touch in two weeks.”

“I will,” she promises, feeling a pang of guilt because in the last two weeks, Alma Moir’s youngest son had been pretty occupied dealing with the fretting mind of one Tessa Virtue, which obviously had prevented him from calling home like the great son that he is.

 

“I love you, Tessa, you know that,” Kate says and a bit of that perpetual guilt is swept down the river at her mother’s gentle reassurance. “For just the person that you are. All your own. But you know, honey, Scott and you, you wouldn’t be who you are without each other, you grew up together, basically raised one another just as much as your father and I and Alma and Joe did. That’s alright. Some of the most wonderful things about you, you’ve picked up from Scott and vice versa.”

 

Tessa perks up, because this, too, could potentially be interesting for her notebook. "Your sense of humour, your ability to engage people, your endlessly encouraging, unwavering support for your friends. You learned all that from him and for him to a certain extent. And he, oh, Tess, he’s learned just about everything else from you. You’re a part of each other, have been since you were little kids. And that’s a good thing. That’s a friend for life. You’re _best_ friends, sweetheart. That’s not so bad.”

 

“I know, thanks, Mom,” Tessa says and thinks that it’s remarkable the her mother sort of had found a way to reframe the whole issue in a way that makes her feel automatically lighter, calmer and more hopeful. Because that makes a lot of sense…that instead of pretending to be what Scott needed, she had simply…learned from him. And he from her. And maybe, just _maybe_ , that could be her story. Once again, for the umpteenth time in her life, Tessa is so proud and so thankful for her mother, the best person in the world and the smartest. (Who incidentally thought her and Scott’s symbiotic growing around each other thing did not have a single downside, so maybe that was also worth consideration. If anything, it made her glad to have her.) “I’ll call you next week, okay?” 

 

A few more sweet words exchanged and Tessa has ended the call, smiling to herself but not quite done. She still needs a second opinion for the start of her research to have a little more footing and because Midori had just visited over the weekend and Tessa always appreciated her friend’s no bullshit-tough love attitude, as well as her aptitude for quick thinking and snazzy conversation, she calls her next. She doesn’t pick up for four beeps though and Tessa is about to hang up when the line rustles and finally Midori answers, sounding winded.

 

“Hey you! Sorry, I couldn’t get my phone out,” she says as hello. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. How’s things?”

“Things are good,” Tessa smiles. "Do you have a minute?”

“A _minute_ , yeah,” her friend says and it sounds like she’s walking in a hurry. “I’m at the airport and my flight is late. _Again._ What’s up?”

"Um, so, can you do me a favour and list everything about me that makes me _me_?” Tessa says, deciding that this is not too much to ask because it will surely not take more than a minute. “It’s for therapy.”

 

“Oh dear,” Midori coughs. “Tessa, that’s a task and a half. Give me a second.” There’s a pause on the other line and a sharp intake of breath until her friend says: “Yeah, okay.”

“Are you smoking again?” Tessa asks suspiciously. 

“No,” says Midori and takes another, this time obviously audible drag from her cigarette.

“ _Mimi,_ ” Tessa admonishes, using the nickname that the other woman only likes under special circumstances, this not being one of them.

“I know, I know, but it was fate, the smoking lounge is literally right beside my gate,” Midori whines. “It’s the last one, I promise."

“It’s always the last one and then you smoke again,” Tessa says and hopes her friend can hear the eye-roll.

“The girl who has kept hooking up with her business partner after saying ‘It’s the last time’ for _years_ does not get to judge how I deal with my addictions,” the other deadpans and Tessa knows she’s been had even through the phone.

 

“Shut up,” she says.

“ _You_ shut up,” Midori parrots in good-humour. "Okay, so here goes, ready? Tessa Jane, you are: considerate, affectionate, smart, driven, reflective, organised, analytical, crap-tastically funny, confident, intelligent, warm-hearted, kind, diplomatic, observant, nurturing, insightful, engaging, encouraging, supportive, sincere, fashionable, fierce, energetic, vivacious, silly, strong, clumsy, inspiring and wonderful. That’s what I got for now. Try me later and I’ll have more.”

“Oh wow, okay, thank you,” Tessa mutters, quite honestly floored. Is this really what people think of her?! If so, that’s really quite wonderful.

 

“Anytime, gorgeous,” Midori says. “Text me later?”

“I will,” Tessa promises.

“Say hi to Scott for me, yeah?”

“Sure thing.”

“God, Tess, I hope he appreciates you,” her friends sighs into her speaker. "I sure do now after listing all of that…you’re a stellar person, you know that?”

“Thank you,” Tessa says, heart glowing and cheeks positively blushing from all that kindness and appreciation. She really has no idea how she deserves all these wonderful people in her life. She really should make sure they all know just how thankful she is to have them. “You too, Midori.” 

“And Scott, does he know you’re a stellar person?” Midori asks, with that tone in her voice that lets Tessa know her friend had not been blind to the changes in Scott’s and her behaviour when they all three got together over the weekend. (But she’ll deal with that some other time.)

“Yeah, I think he knows,” she says simply, for now.

“He better,” Midori harps and then, over a tinny bleary airport intercom announcement Tessa can’t fully make out: “Okay, I gotta go, flight’s boarding. Later, love."

“Later, Mimi,” Tessa grins, grateful. “And thanks again! Bye, Mims.”

 

Five minutes later and feeling about five kilos lighter, Tessa lets herself back into her condo to a sudden silence between her partner and their laptop-therapist.

“So you guys _did_ talk about sex for twenty minutes,” she states into the awkward pause and Scott laughs, tracing her movements as she puts her key in the bowl by the door, slips out of her flip flops and then walks over to squeeze into the frame of the laptop camera (which is an excellent excuse to get close to him) and waves a ‘Hello again’-wave at JF.

“Mostly,” Scott grins and takes her hand.

“Any revelations?” She asks and then Scott’s face switches from dopey grin to severe seriousness in two seconds flat. It would be startling had she not seen it a million times when he gets into character for a program in the tunnel. 

“Tess, I wanna talk about jealousy,” he announces.

 

_Okay._

 

“Okay,” she says. _Bring it on, Moir. I’m in a good place right now._

“‘Cause we were just talking and like, I realised that sex with other people is like the one thing where we really ever had to be jealous about the other person?” Scott says, obviously still on a roll with the talking from his twenty minutes with JF. He seems like he’s all broken into monologuing and so she just leans back and listens. “Because in every other area of my life, like for me, you always come first. You always have. I mean, I think I’ve said that in interviews, even? That nobody else understands me like you do, nobody knows me like you do. And that I don’t need anybody else to either, really, because I got you for that. But…you know, physical intimacy…we’ve had that with other people too.”

 

“But not like that,” Tessa says. And then quickly amends, looking down at her lap. “Well, at least for me.” He squeezes her hand to make her look back up at him again, so she does.

“I…I’ve had great sex with other people. And I’m sure you have, too,” he says. 

 

(She hasn’t. She’s had okay sex with other people. None of them knew how to make her come though, because she was complicated and no one but Scott had ever taken the time to figure her out, none of the (few) others had ever shown any ambition for that. Scott though, he had studied her, diligently, until he knew how to play her body like an instrument, until he knew how to make her _sing._ ) 

 

“But no, nothing quite like this,” Scott says and runs his thumb over her knuckles, soft like torture, making her breath stall a bit and giving her a hard time trying to concentrate on what he says. 

“Which is, I don’t know, I think that’s important. I think that’s important for you to know when you worry about me getting bored of you once we have sex again. Because you’re not like the others. Not Jess, certainly not like Cassandra and not like Kaitlyn either.”

“I guess I just always had a little bit of a harder time with it,” Tessa tells him, following his trail of thought. “Because I was never really in a relationship. I mean…Fedor and Ryan that was just…fun and light but it always had an expiration date.”

 

“And David,” Scott says, even though he knows the entire non-story of that as well as she does. But she guesses it’s fair, just for the completeness of the list.

“That was a car crash. And we never had sex,” Tessa says, more to JF than to anybody else, and turns to the screen to explain. “He’s a skater, pretty known one at that. He was a lot older and separating from his wife and we were kind of flirting and it got…ugly. Especially in the press.”

“Not half of what was said about her was true. People got so disgusting about it,” Scott adds. “…And I still got jealous, even if I knew there was nothing going on. But I wasn’t very good about it. I wasn’t very supportive.”

“I wasn’t very supportive about Cassandra,” Tessa shrugs, to signalise that she is ready to play forgiving Tit-for-Tat.

“Incidentally those were the two things we did after we came out of sleeping together,” Scott says, dragging on the words. “Both questionable choices. And like…heavy course-correcting, eh? You went with an older, mature dude who said nice things about you and I…”

“You got someone who looked like me but without the baggage,” Tessa shrugs and Scott _freezes_ beside her. She snaps her head to him to see why.

 

“That’s what you think Cassandra was?” He stares at her, wide-eyed, as if she’d just said the most preposterous thing.

“Well… You picked her over me,” Tessa says. “That’s kinda what I thought it was.” 

“No, Tess. I…Cassandra, that was…,” he stutters, looking for words. "I didn’t think you and me would…back then, I didn’t know you wanted that. I had no idea until you told me a couple weeks ago. I got with Cass because I was hurting and I thought I needed to snap out of it. She wasn’t the choice there, she was the...methadone. I was so…it killed me to sleep with you and not get to keep you. That I couldn’t be with _you_."

“But we could’ve been,” she puffs, confused about his reasoning, even in retrospect. “We just…we would have just needed to talk about it.”

“No,” he shakes his head resolutely, decided. "Not with Sochi coming. Not with everything going on with Meryl and Charlie and Marina, it just wouldn’t have worked. And I was...I was in a weird place. About you. But that doesn’t matter now. I just, look, I just really need you to know that I didn’t choose her over you. I was just trying to do the right thing. And with Jessica…after the surgery…that was, well…the stupidest thing I ever did and I’m still kicking myself for it every single day.”

 

“And Kaitlyn?” She asks, because that is really the burning question here.

“Kaitlyn was great,” he merely says, like she knew he would.

“She was. She _is_ ,” Tessa can’t help but agree. “That killed me, Scott. It killed me because eventually you were just so happy with her and I saw everything tumbling down. And I hated myself. Because you were happy and I didn’t want you to be happy with her. I’m still so…I’m disgusted with myself. But the thought…the thought of you being with someone else makes me physically ill.”  

“I know, kiddo. Me too,” he says under his breath and the hand around her tightens. “I think I’d still punch Ryan in the face if I saw him today just from residual  hatred. He’s such a dick. That was the worst thing about him. He didn’t deserve you at all. If he’d been someone nice and, like, mature and well-read and sensible. But that dude is just a straight up asshole.”

 

“That’s funny ‘cause to me the worst was Kaitlyn,” Tessa says, bringing her second hand over their joined ones for additional emphasis. "Because I couldn’t hate her at all. She was so amazing and she was so good for you. And I only ever…I don’t know, I had broken your heart and messed everything up and she put you back together.”

“No,” is all he says. 

“No?”

"No, _you_ put me back together, like you always have,” he tells her, open-faced and open-hearted. “She just wouldn’t let me continue ruining myself. But you and skating. That’s what got me back. You just wouldn’t, you never lowered your expectations of me, you never let the bar go down when literally everybody else did. My mom, at the worst of it, she cried when I’d pick up the phone to call her after three weeks of getting smashed. Like I’d made her so proud. Like that was the fucking height of my capabilities. You never did that. You expected me to be Scott Moir, Olympian. And so I was. So I became him again.”

 

“I didn’t know that.” She really, really hadn’t. And it touches her more deeply and more intimately than she can say.

“T, I told you. I came back for _you_. This comeback, it’s all about us. And like, I know I was flakey with the others sometimes but that is just my point. They weren’t you, they aren’t you. Right, JF? Tell her what you told me. About her fears being more justified if we had a purely sexual relationship. If you were just like, a conquest to me, but you are not.”

 

Oh right, JF. Why does she always forget that he’s there once Scott and her get into it? But also…—hold up, more _justified_?!

 

“I did not say ‘justified’,” JF says, looking straight at her when her head snaps around as if he’d read her mind. "I said _appropriate._ Fears are most often justified, because they’re personal feelings, informed by whatever is available to us and those are all valid. And Tessa hadn’t necessarily known to the full extent  that she is this set apart for you.

“Well, now you know,” Scott says, impatiently. “Come on, tell her, Jeff.”

 

“Okay, so what we talked about before you got back was that in human romantic relationships, there is no endgame. It’s all a process,” JF says, his explanation-tone still warm and engaging, even through a computer screen. “You know, you might have these touchstones, the first date, the first kiss, the first time sleeping together or getting married or having a child but those are just a list of firsts, not lasts. There’s no pinnacle here, no podium to get to. So the mindset is completely different. There are no Relationship-Olympics where you gotta medal or else. This isn’t a competition…it’s the training phase, constantly. It’s the _process_ and that needs to be the enjoyable part. Just like in your comeback. The work needs to be the reward.”

 

He pauses to see if they’re still listening, which they are, intently so. “I know that it’s the natural human instinct, to want to just get through it. You just want to be on the finish line but in a relationship, in one like the one you’re planning to have, there’s no such thing. So you really need to be present. You gotta be here for these _moments_ , for this work that we’re doing right now and the work you’re doing on your own, together, on this. Let’s not wish them away, let's take advantage of them and be present in this process. This relationship is a process. And that’s where Scott is at.”

 

“Exactly! That’s where Scott is at,” Scott agrees fervently. “I’m not chasing after the gratification of having sex with you. It’s not about the having sex at all. I could have sex with anybody. I want to sleep with you because it’s you. Because it’s us. Because it’s _your_ hands and _your_ mouth and _your_ body and _our_ intimacy.”

He leans in closer, running the one hand that isn’t holding hers absent-mindedly up and down her arm, leaving more goosebumps in its wake than have blossomed there before anyway at the sound of his words.

 

“But that’s not the podium for me,” he mutters, watching his fingers move on her, which in turn, completely transfixes her. “It’s just a part of the whole thing. And I _want_ the process. I want the work and the getting better and the learning. I want to learn with you, how to be right for each other. I want to learn how to make you feel safe and respected and open and like you can trust me with your whole heart and feel like yourself while we’re at it. And I want to learn that from you.” 

“I want that, too,” she says, feels slightly delirious and a little bit like she is drunk. “I do.”

 

“Guys, it’s great that you’re on the same page,” JF rumbles in like a wrecking ball and completely fucks up the moment. His voice is so cheerful and loud even through the crap speakers that Tessa crashes back harshly into her body on that couch of hers, light years away from the sort of astral plane that Scott had talked her to for a moment there. 

 

“And like I said to Tessa, if you both continue to put the work in, you’ll be fine,” JF hammers on. “You just gotta tackle this like you do the comeback. Get in prepared and present, commit to the work and enjoy the process, work on your good attitude and be optimistic. Celebrate the little victories and keep those logs ready.” He grins, referencing another one of his mental prep analogies, about athletes being on fire and stoking the fire or something. That imagery had been more up Scott’s alley. 

“…Okay, you’re good, guys,” JF says and sounds like he’s saying goodbye. “You’re doing great! But I really gotta go now, sorry to cut this a little short. I got Derek coming over in a bit.”

“Aw, man,” Scott says, sounding excited. “Give him our best!”

“I sure will,” JF promises. "You two have a great day.”

“You too, JF,” Tessa and Scott harp in unison and then he’s gone, the screen going back to the blank chatting interface.

 

“Session is still technically on for ten minutes,” Scott says, folding an arm around her shoulders. “Wanna talk?”

“No, I wanna make out and then watch the Olympics,” Tessa declares.

“Oh, you think that I’d wanna do that, too?” He says, moving even closer, dipping his head and his voice and he's smirking, flirting with her in a way that makes her throat dry up instantly.

“I don’t know, do you?” She asks, copying his teasing tone and touches the tip of her nose to his.

“Yeah,” Scott breathes hotly and then his lips are on hers, tenderly prying them apart and oh so soft, so soft and so perfect.

 

She deepens it on reflex, snaking a hand into his hair, grazing his scalp with her fingernails and he sighs into the kiss as she leans into him, pressing her body close to his. It’s instant, the electricity dancing and surging between them and it knocks the breath out of her lungs. She doesn’t care though, _he’s_ her oxygen. The kiss stays tame, for about a minute and then she moans, low in her throat which in turn kicks him up a notch, grasping for her the back of her neck and he pulls her face even further into his, pushing his tongue into her mouth to taste and twist around hers. He tastes like sunshine, like home.

 

“Omph,” he breathes, catches her bottom lip between his teeth in a way that sends shivers all the way down to her toes. “God, I’m so fucking into you, Tess.”

 

She moans, again, unable to help herself, fists his hair hard when he works his way past her lips down to just below her ear and bites her, before smoothing the marks of his teeth over with a flick of his tongue. She mewls. And hooks her leg over his.

“Don’t cut your hair,” she whispers, loving the feel of his locks between her fingertips, grabbing it like grass on a wild meadow in the spring. When everything is new and fragrant and promising.

“Okay,” he mumbles against her neck, pliantly, _weak_. And she thinks she could make him agree to absolutely everything right now.

 

Her chest perks up, trying to get some air into her lungs as his hands travel down her body, one working it’s way under her top, fingertips mapping out her ribs, going up one by one and then down again, as if she was a keyboard and he was practicing scales.

“Scott,” she breathes, just because she wants his name on her lips and he drags his tongue along her collar bone, slow and steady. 

 

So patient and indulgent in his attentions, she half wants to weep. And her hand…well, her hand acts on its own, setting on a path downwards, brushing over his belt-buckle, leaving that behind and finally landing on the tented front of his khakis, cupping him.

 

He hisses sharply and then a moment later he has caught her wrist in between them. 

“Tessa,” he whispers but doesn’t drag her hand away, instead bucks his hips up just a little, in a way that she isn’t even sure he’s aware of but she still feels him twitch below her, the sizeable bulge in his pants slotting against the curve of her palm. It sends a jolt of red hot _need_ straight down to her core, making the heat pool low in her belly, twirling and demanding, a pull there like a surge, down where she wants him. She only faintly notices that he whips his head back from where it had rested on her clavicle bone, leaving the echo of his kiss in the hollow of her neck.

 

“Sober?” He croaks and she twists her wrist in his grip, closing her fingers around him where he is hard and pulsing for her. She opens her eyes, her gaze flitting down to his. He looks up at her from under thick lashes, vibrant like starlight, eyes glazed over, pupils blown out and mouth hanging weakly open, his lips wet from kissing. 

 

She looks into herself, prompted by his question, discovering worlds and, for the first time since they took the leap, with a perfect clarity, she knows that _yes_ , yes, she is.

“Stone cold,” she says under her breath and the smile that spreads on his face is at once the most innocent and the downright filthiest thing she’s ever seen. It cracks her heart open and makes her push her knees together (but not for long). He kisses her, full on the lips, full-on ready to devour her and then he pulls her on top of him with a completely mind-blowing mix of a groan and a whimper.

It’s five o’clock on a Thursday in August, their counselling session is officially over.

 

Midori doesn't get the text she was promised that night and Tessa and Scott don’t watch the Olympics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Just in case that wasn't clear, they're totally doing it.)
> 
> (Phew. Fucking finally, right?)


	10. ...Sex (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! I deeply apologise for whacking up my usual posting schedule but as I'm writing on the daily with no chapters on hold, yesterday, I just couldn't stay awake long enough to finish this chapter. But, as I have now, y'all North Americans are getting this one for breakfast while I set out to work on the next chapter immediately.
> 
> Someone asked me if I was going to write about TS's long-overdue consummation of their new arrangement, all I can say to that is that Scott had his blue-balls chapter, Tessa had hers and this...well, this is going to be yours. ;)
> 
> (The wait might not be too long because, like I said, I'm going straight back to writing now and might even double-post today...but I don't want to make any promises, so stay tuned!)
> 
> Your thoughts are always appreciated so very much and I would invite everybody to delve into the comment section of last chapter because the lovely user oxymora has educated me on my inaccuracies regarding game theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma (re: Chapter Three) and wrote her own meta about how the actual Tit-for-Tat and PD models could relate to TS and it's endlessly fascinating and I am SO grateful to her for taking the time and so I really just recommend you check that out, 'cause it's stellar and so interesting!!
> 
> All that to say...here is the new chapter. 
> 
> (And I swear to god that I'm really not JF.)

Thursday, 3:58 PM, August 25th 2016

 

Jean-François is in a splendid mood, no other way to put it. Somewhat fresh off the plane from Rio just two days before with a couple more Gold medals under his belt (by proxy but still), he feels about ready to conquer the world. And really, it’s a wonderful day. He’s still grinning from ear to ear remembering how his children had attacked him with a joint-tackle hug upon meeting him at the airport to chants of “Papa, Papa”. He loves those little munchkins more than he can say and it is with a fondness not unlike that which he has for his children, that he greets Tessa and Scott for their first relationship counselling session since that Skype call two weeks ago. 

 

And really, when B2Ten had asked him if he would be willing to tackle their partnership coaching as a whole and not just in regards to the athletic aspect (in which he’d been trained and well versed in), he’d had no idea what he was getting himself into with them. But at the same time he can’t fault them and honestly, he’s so glad that he had agreed to it because a shamefully voyeuristic part of him was just so damned curious to see what it was about them and especially their connection and he honestly feels a bit like being part of a movie that nobody else got to see most of the time. And that is kind of cool.

 

Still, going in, he had thought he would be fine taking cues from his work with Cirque de Soleil, having worked with athletes that relied on each other heavily for death-defying stunts and gymnastics, who needed honesty and blind trust in each other to literally stay alive but he had never tackled a romantic relationship blooming in the wake of a giant athletic project quite like Virtue-Moir’s before. (That is not to say that people at Cirque hadn’t been screwing around with each other like rabbits but he had rarely ever had to deal with any of that stuff professionally before.) With Tessa and Scott, he is literally at the pulse of it and he suspects outside of Marie-France, who seems to know but won’t come out and say it out loud, he is the only one outside of Tessa and Scott who actually _knows_ what is going on. 

 

And what’s going on is a _lot._ Enough to fill a romance novel, like the ones his wife _inhales_ every so often, and he is honestly, humanly and personally touched by their story and by their honest-to-God love for each other. Mind you, him and his wife are the greatest love story of all in his books but Tessa and Scott are a damn close second from what he can tell and even he must concede that their connection is at an almost super-human level and intensity —not that this is always just rainbows and sunshine as he’d seen and felt for himself—, but it was a more urgent and _cardinal_ bond than he had ever seen in his life, including in his own marriage. 

 

He doesn’t envy them that to be honest, and he thought him and his wife had a lot healthier ways to deal with adversities together because they wouldn’t literally die if they ever fell out, so they acted from a place of genuine will to have a functioning partnership, whereas with Tessa and Scott, he could see it was more a matter of life-and-death, of fully being aware of the fact that without each other, they would be left mere shadows of themselves, sad, mopey ghosts, that would walk the earth aimlessly, never being able to fill the void in their souls left by the other person. It’s all pretty _intense_.

 

Only today, it doesn’t feel like it. They sit down on their places on the couch, albeit having forfeit any artificial distance between their bodies and just hover close together, thighs touching all the way and Scott has his arm slung comfortably along the edge of the backrest of the couch, his fingertips peaking up periodically from behind the small of her neck where he’s caressing her gently as if they were alone. Which they are not. But somehow JF keeps having to remind them of that fact.

 

There’s no severity about them today. No fidgety, brooding Scott slumping like he carries the entire weight of the world on his shoulder and no rigid, cringing Tessa looking like she might fall apart if you tucked at the wrong seam of her. No, they are smiling easily, looking at each other, hands and arms but mostly eyes, communicating in absolute silence with only their bodies and JF still wonders how they do that. Without heeding their therapists scrutiny, they touch their foreheads together and Scott whispers something under his breath in that high-pitched-boyfriend-cadence as he interlocks their hands where they’re lying on his lap and Tessa giggles like a schoolgirl. And yeah, _they totally scored._ And a lot, judging by the over-the-top proximity and intimacy in their gazes all the while he, JF, is very much _still in the room._

 

But mind you, _this_ level of lack of focus even for their couple’s sessions is new (and he thinks particularly due to the situation of their latest endeavours). He meant it when he told Scott a while ago that Mondays and Tuesdays, they’re model students. In mental prep, they are sharp, attentive, quick studies and avid learners. It’s interesting because he can practically see their age old compartmentalising in live action: how they check their personal struggles at the door and become pure _athletes_ with a single minded focus. To be better, to enjoy the process and win as much as they can on the way. And he truly admires that. Now, if only they could access the same kind of concentration in moments like these. But instead, they’re still firmly in their own world, conversing in their own hushed language that he can’t even begin to understand and he feel like he is missing stuff in spades.

 

After a little while longer of this, JF finally clears his throat loudly and they startle out of their own little bubble as if he’s slapped them each other their heads (like he’d wanted to). 

 

_Yup, guys, still here, sorry._

 

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” he says, obviously wanting to do just that. “But we’re kinda on the clock here. Unless you want to cancel today and go back to whatever it was you were doing just there.”

 

Tessa has the grace to blush furiously and look at her hands but Scott just shoots him a self-satisfied shit-eating grin (which JF would high-five him for if they were getting a beer together like buddies, but since they’re not, he purses his lips at him, demanding some level of base seriousness).

“So I am guessing —and please correct me if I’m wrong—, that, judging from your body language, you have consummated this new avenue for your partnership recently.”

Scott nods, head bopping, that wicked grin still in place while Tessa carries on steadfastly studying her dark plumb nail-polish with severe intent.

 

“We have _all_ the sex,” says Scott, entirely superfluously and endearingly proud, like a teenage boy, happy that his voice finally broke so he can call himself a man.

“Scott,” Tessa hisses sharply, elbowing him in the side and looking mortified but still won’t let go of his hand, even if he’s clearly embarrassing her with his crassness. And yeah, it’s really adorable and hilarious but JF is a goddamn professional and they’re being children, so he glares at them. Or tries to, at least.

“So, I take it, you’re happy with the way things are unfolding?” He says, steadfastly not humouring Scott’s penchant for mischief. 

“Oooh, yeah,” his client says and nods, making a face. He looks like a puppy. A puppy with lewd thoughts, but a puppy none the less. 

 

“Tessa?” JF says, turning to the woman because at least she is maintaining some boundaries. “How are your worries?” 

"Well, he doesn’t seem bored _yet_ , so…,” she says with an eyebrow-raise and looks at him for the first time, a glint in her eye. And maybe she’s not so great about those boundaries today either.

“I am so the _opposite_ of bored,” Scott declares, captivating Tessa’s full attention again, mostly because he unwinds their hands from each other and instead traces the inside of her arm with one finger, landing in the crook of it, then going down again. Tessa appears instantly dazed. “I’m discovering so many new things,” Scott breathes and Tessa melts into it (there’s really no better way to describe what is happening in her face), exactly until she doesn’t and her eyes go wide and shoot over to her therapist’s. (Who is still there, by the way.)

“Scott, I swear to God,” she hisses under her breath then.

“What?” Scott asks, still focused on the goosebumps he’s raising on his partner’s skin.

“You’re traumatising our therapist,” Tessa says, looking at JF apologetically.

 

She’s not wrong. But alas. “Well, I am being paied a healthy sum for this, so I think I will be okay,” he jokes and then tries again to earn at least a little bit of that money today instead of feeling like a weirdo getting a free live show of the first ten minutes of a soft porn movie. “But on a more serious note, maybe it’s time we talked through the emotional implications of you two being physically intimate and how that interacts and infuses with your interpersonal relationship.”

"You sure have a great way to talk about romance, buddy,” Scott quips, pulling a grimace that makes his eyes look all bug-ish and this time JF really can’t keep the grin off his face, hard as he tries. (He just likes that dude and he’s _funny_ , he can’t help it.)

“I’m a professional guy,” he says, doing Scott the favour of getting into the joke with him.

“Clearly,” the skater says, winking.

 

“So, it seems that Scott wants to share first,” JF announces, to _show_ him. “Do you feel like your relationship dynamic has changed since you started having sex again?”

“The dynamic?” Scott repeats and sits up straighter, taking Tessa’s hand again but otherwise seemingly getting into therapy-mode, finally. “No I don’t know that that’s changed, do you?”

“No,” Tessa answers him when he’s barely finished answering, as if she had been anticipating the question. “No, not really."

“Um yeah, I feel like we’re in a pretty damn good place right now,” Scott says, turning to JF again. “If that’s what you mean. We’re having a lot of fun, we’re laughing, we’re talking, we’re… _communicating_. And now there’s another layer to that.” 

 

Which is a sensible and boundary-aware way to put it, so JF nods at him appreciatively. _Good boy, Scott._  

“Tessa?” He asks his partner because Scott has a tendency to answer for them both with a finality that Tessa rarely challenges. And she doesn’t seem inclined to now either. Instead, she is cringing a little bit.

“Yeah. We’re good…I’m sorry, I’m having a bit of trouble discussing this,” she admits, sheepishly. “It’s kind of…well, not ‘kind of’—it’s _really_ private."

“We absolutely do not have to if you’re uncomfortable,” JF hurries to say because it’s true. Talking about their sex life is (God knows) not a prerequisite for therapy but since so much in the last few weeks had hinged on the topic (and Tessa, just a couple of weeks ago, had not been shy about educating the two men in the room of exactly how she likes to ‘treat herself’), JF had assumed they would be okay with it.

 

“No, no. This is…the process. It’s fine,” Tessa hurries and steels herself, nodding at him and then inclines her head towards her partner. “I’d just feel better if Scott didn’t act like he’s going to go into graphic detail every second now.”

“Relax, babe,” Scott scoffs and then laughs a bit to take the edge off of his reaction. ( _He’s learning_ , JF notes.) “I’m just…I’m just really fucking _happy_. It’s like a whole new world for me.” And then he looks at his therapist with an expression so cheerful, it’s really hard not to mirror it. “Because I finally don’t feel rotten sleeping with her.”

 

JF’s eyes shoot to Tessa before the words have even fully left Scott’s mouth. _Oh, oh._

“Excuse me?” She chirps, after a beat. “When did you feel rotten?”

“Before,” Scott shrugs, seemingly unaware of the very thin ice he just crashed onto.

“Having sex with me felt _rotten_?” She asks sharply.

“Not what I said,” Scott says and brings his free hand to cover theirs both and readjusts his grip on her, searching for her eyes. “I said _I_ ’d felt rotten having sex with you.”

“Why?” Tessa looks like he’s got three heads suddenly.

 

“I can’t…I don’t know how to explain,” Scott shrugs sincerely. “That’s just what it was.”

“Does that have anything to do with you jumping headfirst into relationships after we’d done it a couple of times in the past?” Tessa continues, leaning into him and working audibly for an even voice. (And she really does have a knack for asking him the right questions.)

“Excellent question,” JF praises accordingly and continues to do his job before Tessa does it for him. “Maybe there is something interesting to unearth here. Scott, could you try and list why you did not feel good about sleeping with Tessa in the past? Were there any inciting moments for those feelings?”

 

“I don’t know,” Scott says and then falls silent, taking a long moment to search for an answer. ( _He really_ is _learning_ , JF thinks.) “The first time I think I…I was ashamed. And like I shouldn’t have done it,” Scott lands on. “‘Cause she was so scared of the surgery and stuff. Like, I guess I thought I should’ve told her no. Because we were both kind of out of our minds with worry. And…I don’t know, I had this whole thing about Tessa. Pretty much into Carmen as well.”

“What thing?” Tessa cuts in.

“Just this… _feeling_ ,” Scott tells her. “That I shouldn’t be touching you. Because you were…well, _you."_

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asks, eyes squinting under knotted eyebrows.

 

“God, T, for the longest time you were like my little sister,” Scott huffs, as if that was the most obvious answer in history (which JF concedes it probably is). “Everybody always kept saying: ‘Look out for Tessa, you’re the older one, you’re the one who needs to protect her, she’s small and tiny and innocent’ and that…that did stuff to my head. The innocent part most of all. I mean, everyone kind of said in the beginning that you were like a little sister, didn’t they? That I should treat you like you were.”

 

JF can see it clearly in his minds eye and, having an older boy and a younger girl himself, he can picture the stations of Tessa and Scott’s early life together vividly. _Look out for your sister, make sure she’s fine, don’t let her wander off alone._ And then that inherent big-brother-thing that even his little boy already does from time to time (when he’s not screaming in anguish about his sister stealing his building blocks), and gets very protective, saying things like: “She’s my sister, I get to tease her but nobody else!” in his high-pitched, self-assured little voice.

 

“But then we were also doing the dancing and the gazing and the holding and I then I was thirteen and we were playing _lovers_ on the ice,” Scott continues and JF gets the idea. “So that messed me up to begin with, because it was kinda gross, like, that _thought_. That you were like my sister but also like _that._ And then I got older and all that _stuff_ started happening to me.” Scott lifts his extra hand from the clump of theirs to gesture vaguely over his crotch-area, his very Scott-way of indicating _puberty_. “I mean, can you count how many times I had a boner in practice? ‘Cause I can’t.” Tessa shoots JF another apologetic sideway glance for the TMI but then goes back to give Scott her full focus.

 

“And those weren’t all bodily-functions boners either,” Scott tells her, intently. "And you were so young and I was the older one and the big brother-like dude and I…I didn’t even fully understand what sex was until the fucking internet but I had an idea that I wanted to do that with you. I looked at you in your costumes and I thought ‘what if you could do that stuff with Tess?’ And I was so embarrassed because, then I’d go: ‘that’s practically your sister!’ But my body didn’t care. I felt disgusting. I felt like a disgusting, weird pervert. And that didn’t go away. I felt like a pervert when we moved to Canton and I got a real crush on you and I guess I still felt like a pervert a little bit when we had sex for the first time."

 

“That’s…that wasn’t like that for me at all,” Tessa mutters, looking off into the distance.

“Why?” Scott asks.

“Because I had a crush on you since before we were even properly introduced,” she shrugs. “I _never_ thought of you as a brother. Not for a single day."

“Yeah, well I did,” Scott scoffs, then softens. “And there was also this kind of thrill of the forbidden to it? I mean, not like I was turned on by that whole weird incest-like angle, god forbid. It was more like, the dramatics of it. It was like my brain just thought…Okay, Scott, what’s the most fucked up thing I could make you want right now? ‘Oh, here, take _Tess_ , your off-limits-skating-partner-quasi-sister and want her for the rest of your life.’ And that was that.”

 

At this, Tessa unlocks their hands and turns her upper body fully towards him, hiking up her knee onto the couch in a way that communicates clearly to JF that they’re in their own space right now, haggling this out among themselves as he merely observes. (Which he does, because this is wildly fascinating.  From a purely scientific standpoint, obviously.)

“And I didn’t think of you that way anymore in 2008 but that feeling like I was some sexual deviant kind of stuck with me,” Scott tells her, mirroring her re-positioning until there’re completely locked into each other, his voice dropping to an intimate, soft pitch. “Because you were so pure and so sweet and I was supposed to look out for you. But I didn’t _want_ to look out for you, I wanted to _own_ you. You were so innocent and I just wanted to…taint you and have you and…I wanted to be your first so badly. That was like…the running fantasy of my teenage years.” Tessa’s face flares up and Scott notices it like a shot. “Awesome, and now _you’re_ disgusted with me,” he sighs, sounding pained and embarrassed. 

 

“No, I’m not. I’m just processing,” she reassures him quickly, a hand flying forward to pat his arm. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know you had those kinds of feelings…those _sexual_ feelings for me.”

“Tess, they put us out on the ice every single day and had us doing lifts and spins all up in each other’s business and sent us ballroom dancing to pretend better that we were grown ups in the throes of passion,” he says. “Plus, I’m a _guy._ Of course I had those feelings.” 

 

“I had those feelings before I even knew what they were,” Scott carries on. “And then when you left for the surgery, I still felt so bad that I’d slept with you. I felt so guilty for giving in to my, like, _base desires_ instead of preserving your innocence or whatever, like I should have. That, with all the other crap, made it kind of easier to just get back with Jess and try to forget about how I basically banged my little sister and wanted to do it again. Even if I didn’t really think of you that way anymore then but like, still.” He shrugs animatedly, face scrunching up, looking for words. “I’ve said that before. I don’t know, this isn’t making any sense. It was weird, T. It was super fucking weird.” 

 

“And Carmen?” Tessa inquires.

“Carmen was like same-same but different,” Scott muses. “Minus the sister thing for real this time. Because that thankfully, eventually really went away. Mostly because I kept wanting to have sex with you pretty much every day and that just didn’t work anymore with that _complex._ So I guess my brain saved itself from a having stroke from shame at the end.” He takes her hand again where it had been fidgeting with the hem of his T-shirt before and it looks like he needs it, needs to touch Tessa and have her as an anchoring point to walk through this avenue of his past. 

 

“I still thought I was corrupting you, though,” he says. “When we did Carmen. And then obviously Marina hammered it into us that we shouldn’t be sleeping together because ‘look how it turn out, couples fighting all the time, can’t skate anymore’.” He has said that last bit with a thick Russian accent that he honestly has down pretty well (which figures, seeing as they’d spent about ten years of their lives with their Russian coach). "And I was just…I had it in my head that as long as we were skating competitively I should not be sleeping with you and I should not _want_ to be sleeping with you,” Scott almost whispers to her. “But because, like, I did totally want to sleep with you and my self-control is literal shit when it comes to you, of course we slept together anyway.”

 

“And _that’s_ why you got with Cassandra,” exclaims Tessa as the coin drops. “Because you didn’t have to feel _bad_ about sleeping with her.”

“And because she kinda looked like you,” Scott mumbles under his breath and looks away from her.

“I knew it!” Tessa almost shrieks and jumps up a little bit where she sits, triumph on her face. “I _fucking_ knew it.” (And JF is pretty sure that the only time she ever curses out loud is when with Scott.)

“Tessa, the absolute entire world knew it,” Scott mutters, pinches the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed and then opens them up to hers again. And then there is a pause long enough for JF to hear his cue. Excellent. 

 

“Scott, I think what you were going through growing up was on the outskirts of a Madonna-whore-complex,” he says, even if that’s grossly oversimplifying things but he’ll explain it in a minute. “Have you ever heard about that?”

“Nope,” Scott says with an expression that adds ‘Of course I don’t, I don’t care about this stuff’. Which JF knows of course—but Tessa perks up as she always does when there is something psychological being discussed. JF had learned that about them in the time he’d known them. Tessa has a broad spectrum of interests and is especially into figuring out human behaviour and the ins and outs of relationships (especially her own with Scott), while Scott loves hockey, then any other sport and then music and mostly takes things as-is with her, not caring so much about the scientific side of anything. (But then again Scott can name every important Canadian Hockey player of the last three decades with their jersey numbers, as JF had learned the second time they’d taken a private trip to the brewery together, so that’s something…but anyway, back to the task at hand.)

 

"Well, as a psycho-analytical term, it’s used to describe the inability of men to maintain sexual arousal in a committed relationship because the theory goes that sexual interest is only roused by the archetype of the ‘whore’, like a loose, fallen woman, the sinner so to speak, while romantic feelings are only developed towards the archetype of the ‘madonna’, the ‘virgin’ or the ‘saint’,” JF explains the base concept. “This is not exactly what I mean in regards to you, though.” 

Scott’s features soften where they had hardened before, momentarily offended that JF would accuse him of the inability to maintain both a sexually and romantically committed partnership. Which was not what JF had meant at all and had now computed. _Good._ Onwards. 

 

“Because that whole ‘complex’ is a Freudian invention and as we all know, Freud has been vastly overturned in his relevancy to actual  modern-day psychology,” JF says to Scott, who looks at him completely unfazed like this information means nothing to him, and Tessa, completely different, who nods fervently as if she were in the first row of a lecture (she’s got this stuff _down!_ ). 

“But the bottom line of the concept still remains and is to a certain degree a learned behaviour for young boys especially raised in monotheistic and even more so in a Christian-faith-based environment, hence the Madonna term,” he continues, trying to engage them both if he can. “In the Western world, it’s also extremely dominating in mainstream media. You got the virgin-slut-dichotomy practically in every fictional or semi-fictional media, from romantic comedies to stuff like _The Bachelor_. You’ll find most women are portrayed either on the motherly-saint end of the scale or the hot-slut one, the sexually attractive ones oftentimes painted as bitchy or stupid, while the others are warm, nurturing and often not sexually alluring.”

 

“They did that to me too, you know,” Tessa throws in and JF tilts his head at her to signal for her to elaborate. “Well, before Vancouver, when all that stuff about David and I was going around. I originally was supposed to have a pink or a blue dress for Mahler but then they decided to put me in white and go with that whole angel imagery. They wanted to de-slut my reputation.”

Scott’s jaw clenches along with both his fists, one in his lap, one on the backrest of the couch.

“You weren’t a slut,” he says vehemently.

 

“Yeah, but that’s the point,” Tessa says. “Even if I had been, even if I’d slept with the entire Canadian Hockey team and everybody had known for sure and was not just running their mouths on _gossip_ , what Marina wanted to sell was the untouched, angelic virgin, this wholesome, completely unattainable idea. That’s what she hammered into _me_. She told you not to have sex with me but she told me to be _flawless._ ‘Don’t show that your legs are killing you after ten minutes and don’t look like you had one improper thought ever in your life because everybody thinks you’re a filthy home-wrecker and we don’t win medals with that’. That was _Tessa in Vancouver_.”

 

Scott frowns and so she touches him again, tapping his knee as she continues. “There’s just those two extremes for women in our sport. I mean, just look at our programs. It’s either Mahler or Carmen. I’m either innocently in love with you or a wicked temptress driving you mad, there’s no in between. No soft _and_ strong or loving _and_ sexy. I can’t be the virgin and the slut at the same time, so to speak. I never got to be a full person on the ice.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott says automatically and she smiles and grabs his hand.

“That’s not your fault, baby,” she says gently. “That’s just how it is.”

“But I’m sorry that I bought into that, about you,” he says. “That I thought about you in those terms. I didn’t even think about the fact that you might have your own sexual desires, you know. I just thought I had to make sure not to make you dirty, or something. Like you had no agency at all.” Scott is talking as if he is just now unpacking it and JF wants to clap at the progress. And also _explain_. (Because he loves explaining stuff, especially to people like Tessa and Scott who are so eager to listen.)

 

“But see, Scott, for a young male growing up in our society, especially one like yourself who was so soon and so _extremely_ exposed to the performative element of female tropes and archetypes  that Tessa just mentioned, _while_ at the same time having to navigate this relationship with an _actual_ human female —who very much _is_ a full, round person—, in a perpetual flux between the little-sister-virgin-role and the vague-potential-temptress-role, it’s absolutely natural that you would be confused,” JF tells them. “You understood the advice you were given to look after her as a signifier for her being an _innocent_ , someone you had to protect and shield and look after, somewhat in a familiar, thereby completely asexual context while you were encouraged at the same time to look at her and dance with her on the ice as if you were, like you said, _lovers_. And I imagine that in the creation of your performances, the sexual angle, even if unspoken, did play a part at the time when these feelings started, right? When you were about thirteen, Scott?”

 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Scott nods and there are some things visibly slotting together in his brain and start to make sense to him.

“Well, there you go!” JF exclaims. “Smack dab in the middle of your, let’s call it _sexual awakening_ , you had to deal with all of that. What I’m trying to say is: You’re not weird, you’re not a pervert, have never been. You were in a complicated situation, growing up next to and _with_ a girl who was supposed to be two very opposing things to you at the same time. That’s confusing as hell. It was bound to leave an impact and mess with your head.”

 

Tessa nods and squeezes Scott’s hand as it’s interlocked with hers on his thigh, still reassuring him that she doesn’t feel like he has done wrong by her. 

“What is interesting for your relationship now is if you think that has changed?” JF asks him, steering the conversation back to the productive side of things. “Or do you still feel like you are tainting Tessa’s innocence? Because you started out saying that you don’t feet rotten anymore.”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess that’s what I meant,” Scott says. To Tessa, not to his coach.

 

“Could you say what changed?” JF asks him anyway, undeterred.

“I guess it took Sochi. I think I needed to…see the end of it, of our competitive career, to be able to shake that inner blockade about her. Like, in my head we were done after Sochi. I know _I_ was done,” Scott says. “I don’t really have a good way to…it’s like when you option a contract of a hockey player and that option expires and the player is free to renegotiate or change the team? Well, if I was the hockey player, the option was always kind of this ‘Tessa is off limits’ thing that was gonna run until the end of our amateur career and then the option expires and we’d be free to get a new thing. A new deal. And once that ban on Tessa had optioned out, that mindset was gone. I never even thought about it after, really. And now with the comeback, I think that in the beginning we thought we needed that ban back but things are so different this time, I don’t think I felt like it applied so much. Do you?” (The question is again, of course, directed at his partner.)

 

“That’s the only block _I_ ever had, anyway,” Tessa answers him. “About the skating suffering and that’s why we wouldn’t go there. That was the only hold-up I had about it before Sochi. And after, you know, beside the trying to keep things uncomplicated, it was the identity crisis. I thought I couldn’t be with you before I fully figured myself out.”

“Yeah, well, you let go of that. And I let go of the Tessa-ban,” Scott muses. “That’s a nice give and take.”

“And the sex?” Tessa asks him.

“What about the sex?” Scott leans back into her like a snap and JF, on the other side of the table knows that he’s out again. Just like that, forgotten and discarded because of a three-letter word. _Ah, those two._

 

“You don’t feel guilty or like we’re doing something forbidden now, do you?” Tessa clarifies her question as JF concedes himself again to spectator-status.

“Not at all,” Scott shoots back. “You?”

 

“No,” Tessa shakes her head. “And I mean, about earlier…I am a human being. I like sex, too. I like being sexy and tempting and teasing sometimes. I like owning my sexuality and I feel like I get to. I get to demand that too and be sexually expressive or whatever without being branded as a slut. I don’t want these boxes, not in my private life. Not with you.”

 

“No, not at all,” promises Scott hurriedly. “I honestly haven’t thought of you in these terms in forever. I couldn’t even say when that changed. Just that I now know that it’s all facets of you. And that you can be wildly different things within the measure of a day even and that’s all a part of you. You’re not a virgin or a slut to me, you’re just _Tessa_. You’re everything you wanna be. And I’ll love all of it. And the _sex_ , I mean…”

“Yes?” Tessa whispers and if it’s at all possible, they’re even more enraptured by each other than before, the temperature in the room rising a few degrees. Oh, _Boy._

 

 _“_ I feel like that’s…like that’s the best thing I get to do in the world with my body. Including skating,” Scott tells her in sincere wonder. “Better than anything, really. It’s like I’m…right _there_ you know.” He brings his free hand up press it down on her chest, on her heart and effectively closes their bodies off into a unit, his shoulder now turned to JF who is left to stare into the void (and would stare into the camera if her were on The Office). As it is, he can’t do much but listen in on that very intimate conversation between his clients, casting his eyes down because he feels he at least shouldn’t be watching this. It feels private. 

 

“Like, together as we are, that’s when I feel like we’re really _one_ ,” Scott rasps _._ “I know that sounds so cliché but that’s what it feels like. Like the last membrane between us disappears.  And we’re just…so together, you know. That’s the _best._ ”

“I feel so too,” Tessa agrees on almost a whisper. “For me it’s like coming home? Like I can really completely fall into it, fully. And don’t worry about anything else in the world, like it’s just you and me in the entire universe.”

“Yeah.” Scott sounds like it’s getting hard to breathe. JF counts the flies that are swirling around his book case. (There aren’t nearly enough to count.)

“Like it is on the ice. It’s just us,” Tessa says. “Nothing else, just that.”

“Exactly,” Scott agrees, his voice so high and soft JF feels like he is literally in their bedroom with them.

 

“And it’s _good,”_ Tessa says, drawling on the last word, making it inevitably sound completely obscene. ( _Hello Darkness my old friend_ , JF thinks with a weird surge of gallow’s humour. _I gotta get out of this before they start taking their clothes off._ )

“Yeah?” Scott is barely audible anymore but the sound of him asking genuinely for reassurance, for Tessa to give him feedback on their horizontal exploits, is blaring and loud in its vulnerableness and devotion to her either way.

“ _SO_ good,” Tessa tells him. “Nobody else ever…”

“What?” Scott asks her, hotly.

And then Tessa murmurs something to him JF can’t understand but that ends on: “Not here.” 

 _Yes, please! Please not_ here.

 

“Come on, just say it,” Scott whispers and JF wishes he hadn’t just gotten his ears checked to get 99,7% hearing attested. Still, he can’t make out exactly what Tessa says, only sees from the corner of his eyes that the two of them are pretty well on their way to climbing into each other.

“So technically you _were_ the first and the only,” she says, this much JF picks out and yeah, he understands, though he wishes that he hadn’t. “At least about that.”

And then Scott growls audibly and before JF’s very hot-headed client can actually and seriously put his skating partner on their therapist’s coffee table and desecrate his entire office (and professional career), JF pulls the plug.

 

“Okay guys, that’s _it_ ,” he bellows, infinitely glad to see them break apart relatively imminently, so he can look their way again and shake his head at their antics. "Scott was right, you’re absolutely no use like this.” They look at him like fishes out of water, eyes large and bodies flushed and he ponders for a moment if they really don’t know what kind of show they’ve just put on. "I’m _serious_ , I’m calling the session. You’re doing excellent, I can assure you. But I swear to god, if you start making out in here, I will _scream._ Loudly. So, get lost, you two. Enjoy your night.”

 

Five minutes later (and finally appropriately apologetic), Tessa and Scott leave his office hand in hand to him rolling his eyes hard enough to hurt. _These horny dorks_ , he thinks fondly as he closes the door behind them and fishes for his cell in his pocket. _They’ll be the death of me._

 

“Session ended early, come over?” He texts his wife who usually hangs out in a park or a café in the area at this time of the day, waiting for their kids’ Judo lesson to end so she can take them home.

“I brought you brioche,” she says in lieu of hello when she waltzes into his office a little while later.

“You’re an angel,” he yelps, getting up to kiss her briefly and then takes her by the hand to join him on the couch. “How long do you have?”

“About twenty minutes,” she tells him after a quick glance at her watch (and it’s a great watch, all peach and rosé golden, just as she likes it, and he _knew_ when he got it for her birthday).

“Awesome,” he grins and then, because he literally can’t hold it in anymore: “You know my theoretical couple that I theoretically couple-counsel?”

 

And okay, he had cracked, alright? When Tessa and Scott told him that they’d kissed, he’d felt such a personal level of gratification (because he had worked with them to get to that point and he wasn’t even a real couple’s counsellor and how awesome was that? _On a professional level!!_ ), that he just _had_ to tell his wife about it. Using broad theoretical explanations of course, though.

“You mean the theoretical weight lifter and her theoretical runner boyfriend?” His wife asks with a wink.

"Yes, those,” he says without missing a beat. 

 

When he’d first told her about the theoretical couple, it had taken her a second to sit up all excitedly and ask him if he was talking about “the adorable ice dancers” and he’d panicked and made up another couple to cover for both Tess and Scott and himself. She’d bought it, thank God.

 

“They finally _did_ it,” he tells her now, sounding even to himself like a valley-girl-gossip. He can’t help it though, ‘cause it’s all so _juicy._

“Oh, interesting,” his wife emotes, genuinely invested. “And how do they seem?”

“Pretty good,” he says and then shakes his head with the war flashbacks from just now. “ _Very_ annoying, though. All over each other.”

 

“Ah, but this is so nice,” she coos. “I get my couple on my TV show and you get your couple in real life. We’re having good shipper times.”

“I told you to stop saying that,” he snaps, only half-kidding. What the hell is it about his wife’s stubborn obsession about this “shipping” thing? He will _never_ understand. How she can spend hours online reading stuff about fictional couples…or why she’d gotten their kids Rey and Kylo-themed Star Wars bedsheets that she would always stare at fondly when she hung them out to dry as if she had bought them for _herself._ It didn’t make sense.

 

“You know it’s true, honey,” she shrugs. "Mike will get out of prison any episode now and then he and Rachel will finally get married and it’ll all be wonderful. And your theoretical couple finally got their shit together and you’re happy about it, I get it. They’re your Mike and Rachel.”

“I like Harvey and Donna so much better,” he tells her, thinking about how the current season of Suits (which was the only show they watched live together every week), kind of annoys him because he was all tired of Mike’s storyline in prison and annoyed of Harvey and Donna not wising up. His wife agrees, apparently. 

 

“Harvey and Donna are completely _exhausting,_ ” she blares animatedly. “I mean, come on! They’ve known each other for almost decades, they’re best friends who are completely in love with each other but just can’t get it together for years? Give me a break. And Harvey getting a new girlfriend every season that he inevitably leaves because he’s in love with Donna but he thinks he can’t get with her because they’re working together or it’s ruin the friendship or some shit…exhausting.” (And if you put it like that…)

“Actually…,” JF muses, taking a bite from his brioche and then chewing as he speaks, “I think my theoretical couple is my Darvey.”

 

“Ha!” Excitedly, his wife slaps her hand down hard on his knee. “So you _do_ ship them!”

“You can’t ship people in real life, that’s weird,” he tells her sternly, because _no._ “They’re not  fictional characters."

“Watch me!” His wife challenges. “Did you know that the guy who plays Mike is married to the girl who’s on that Pretty Liars show? Wait…,” she clamours for her phone, taps on her Instagram app and then holds out a profile for him to glaze over. "See? Look how cute they are? They’re engaged and they’re just the cutest! I ship that!”

 

“You’re _so_ weird,” JF huffs. “I don’t think I want you to pick up my children."

“Oh, you love me,” she huffs right back and elbows him in the side. “And no matter what you wanna call it, you _ship_ your theoretical couple there. You know it, but more importantly, _I_ know it.”

“Stop talking,” he pleads with her because they really shouldn’t and this is all levels of inappropriate. And to facilitate, he uses a diversion that works on her nine times out of ten: "Make out with me instead. We got…seventeen minutes.”

“Okay…,” she concedes after a while. “But only because I like you so much.”

 

And so they make-out. Because honest to God, the only one who gets to do that in Jean-François’ office is Jean-François. Now matter how much he likes Tessa and Scott.

 

(And, like, fine, okay, potentially-maybe, somewhat “ships” them a _little_ bit.) 

 

(Just please don’t tell his wife.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Okay so I got meta on us there for a moment...but I thought all of us here, if we're either writing or reading, probably had the conversation that JF had with his wife a million times with our friends, families or SOs. So that was just a little tongue-and-cheek hi to all of us.)
> 
> As far as the blue-balling goes..something is coming and it's both of them. Now I would like a show of hands who wants to be in Scott's head for that! (Not that it will change anything if you don't because it's gonna be Scott either way but still, put your hands up in the air for the end of Scott's dry-spell..and wave 'em like you just don't care!)
> 
> PS: I have decided to come forward with my personal twitter because I really am not JF and I kinda wanna prove that, lest anyone actually gets any ideas. So if you want to, come yell at me @EllieCarina 
> 
> (And if you like Reylo like JF's wife does, you can find stories I've written for them over here on A03 under that same name)
> 
> Thank you all endlessly for your support and I'll see y'all later :)


	11. ...Oxytocin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Here we are. My vacation and Tessa and Scott's dry-spells are officially over.  
> I will sleep forever now until my way-too-soon wake-up call to fly home to a busy weekend. 
> 
> So this will conclude this stretch of updating every day for at least the weekend..but, since we will be at around 70,000 words with this chapter, you can go back and read stuff again to pass the time if you're missing the updates ;)
> 
> I have put marks around the graphic bits of this...because it does get a little graphic and I know not everybody likes that...so look out for the little linebreaks and avoid if need be. (But honestly, that's like 80% of this chapter...)
> 
> Long thing short: I hope you enjoy this and I'm looking forward to your thoughts :)

Thursday, 04:02 PM, September 1st 2016

 

Tessa takes his hand as soon as they are off the street and Scott feels momentarily reassured. Because while she is freaking out, she is trying to reassure him that he _doesn’t_ need to panic. She has promised him that she isn’t questioning their choices or has begin to draw back from the relationship (which is going so _great_ , heavens and hells!), she’s just…a little bit concerned that they entirely fucked up their comeback by getting together. _But no biggie._

 

Still, she is right there with him, walking into JF’s office and sitting down, slotting against his side at a comfortable proximity and doesn’t take her hand off of his thigh when she starts speaking to their mental prep coach the second he has sat down and can’t even get a word in.

 

“We have a problem,” she announces.

“Oh?” JF asks, after a double-take (because Scott is sure they don’t look a smidge like they have a problem of any sort).

“Our skating _sucks_!” Tessa wails, every ounce of stress this has been causing her the last couple of days audible in her voice and obvious in her rigid posture. Her fingers dig into the flesh of Scott’s thigh and he tries hard to not let her excess nervously-pessimistic energy rub off on him.

“It doesn’t suck,” he tells JF. _And_ her. 

“But we’re not skating _well_ ,” Tessa laments, whining, and sounds like she is thirteen again. “We keep messing up the twizzles! And our spin is off, I _hate_ the stupid spin."

 

“Tess is worried that we lost our edge because we’re in a relationship,” Scott informs their therapist wryly. And look, it’s not like Scott hasn’t noticed that their lines are a bitt off-kilter and that the cuing isn’t quite working (because his head is constantly going back to their bedrooms) but he isn’t so completely out of it about it, like Tessa is. She is literally melting down with nerves where she sits, like a failing nuclear plant. And he thinks she’s frankly over-reacting.

“Not worried, just concerned,” she corrects him and he squeezes her hand lightly. 

 

“Well, guys, let me ask you this,” JF starts, clapping his hands together in that ‘Let’s get this show on the road’-way he has when starting a session. "Have you been…a little distracted lately because of the fact that you got into a relationship?”

“Well, yeah…,” Scott says, keeping from saying ‘duh’ by a hair.

“Naturally,” JF says, shrugging as if Scott really had said it. “That’s normal. It’s an adjustment. Now, have you ever heard of the hormone oxytocin?”

“The cuddle hormone,” Tessa replies instantly, because _of course she has_ and she’s never one to pass up on a quiz. 

 

“Yeah, that’s what it’s dubbed,” JF nods. “It’s a hormone that is dispersed, so to speak, in the body to facilitate pair-bonding, in humans as well as in the animal kingdom. It works for the pair-bonding of parents and children but also for sexual partners, basically engineered to keep pairs together long enough to care for their children if they’re a monogamously procreating species. In humans it tends to rage especially in the first months of a new relationship and while it makes you feel all fuzzy and nice and _bonded_ , it also, on its downside, can cause a very strong ‘Us vs. Them’ mindset, which at its worst can breed aggression towards things that are other. But that’s just to give you a quick overview. Pertinent for you guys right now is the nice, but all-consuming fuzziness that is distracting you from achieving your best athletic results.”

 

Scott makes a face, trying to just make sense of all the words their mental prep coach has just strung together as if he was giving one of his motivational speeches while not taking an audible breath _once._

 

“Yes,” Tessa, meanwhile, agrees fervently. "What do we do?”

“Well, first and foremost: be patient with yourselves and recognise that this is normal and nothing to worry about,” JF replies gently. "You’re on track. You _are_ skating well, the programs are coming about great and it’s almost a full month until Autumn Classic. You’ll be completely fine.” Then he tilts his head and takes pity on Tessa, whose fears are really bubbling out of her body, flitting like billiard balls all over the place. “ _But_ , if you want to, we can mash-up Mondays and Tuesdays with today a little and do a mental prep exercise that might help.”

“Absolutely, we’ll do anything!” Tess declares, eagerly, and Scott is torn between utterly admiring her dedication to their comeback and wanting to roll his eyes a little at her over-the-top freak-out.

 

“So, I’m thinking…a visualisation exercise, yeah? But with a twist to accommodate for your special circumstances. Because you need to get used to this situation in your life and in your training. It’s something you’ve never had before with each other, so it definitely is an added stress,” JF elaborates. “If not a bad one. Still, you gotta learn to be comfortable with it. Comfortable in the comfortable, so to speak. So…let’s get this table out of the way and cuddle it out.”

“We get to cuddle?” Scott asks, unbidden, because suddenly the exercise sounds a lot more alluring and his interest is piqued again.

“That’s the concept,” JF affirms. “I’ll walk you through a competition day and your programs and you’ll cuddle through it. To balance the distractions.”

“Oh, I’m gonna be _terrible_ at this!” Scott exclaims but rubs his hands together as he does before they go out onto the ice sometimes. In anticipation. 

 

And they think he’s kidding. But he’s really not. 

 

JF and him move the coffee table to the side while Tessa plucks two cushions from beside JF’s bookshelf, the one fitted underneath the large window opening up into a green Laval street and waits for him to join her on the ground on the floofy carpet that is about bed-sized and gives him ideas.

“I’ll just sit over here,” JF tells them sinking down on his office chair, because it would indeed be weird to do this literally lying at his feet. “Just yell when you’re ready.”

“Yell!” Scott announces once Tessa has settled in on his chest (as they do nowadays when they cuddle) and put her arms across his torso while he sloped his around her shoulders, the other one resting on her wrist where it lies on his ribcage. He likes her weight on him so much, his thoughts almost drift off before JF even gets started with his dream journey.

“It’s competition morning,” JF eventually begins when he deems them justly settled in, as is his usual lead in into the visualisation exercises—and just like that Scott has already tapped out. 

 

He feels a little bit guilty for not even trying but it’s really no use. He can’t focus on anything these days except for Tessa. And he can _still_ skate, thank you very much, and still skate _great_ because he’s a good skater, for crying out loud. He will get back to pristine twizzles in time, too. He’s not worried. He’s in _love_. And that’s a much nicer thought to linger on, especially with Tessa snugly in his arms. So he goes on his own dream journey instead, going through a rolodex of new memories made with her in the last half month and honestly attempting to find one that is not R-rated (him surprising her with an unprompted coffee delivery on a Sunday, talking for an hour over the phone in the dead of night as Tess took a breather from Midori’s wedding last weekend, waking up to her gorgeous freckled face several minutes before his alarm…), but then he has pictured her in his bed and the dam breaks. As it was always bound to, let’s be real.

 

He shimmies a bit where he lies to get really comfortable, shifting Tessa into just the spot where she perfectly fits into the mould of his body and smiles with his eyes closed as he delves into one of his favourite new memories. The one of that magical first time that had kicked things off again. He tries to remember it bit by bit but the parts that are blurry, he just fills with stuff from some other great times they’ve had since then (he’s got a good variety to choose from now, so he’s pretty contented to just go off). 

 

The memory starts out on her couch, with her lips on his and then… _oh God_ , that moment when she had grabbed his junk, hard and assured and his entire body had _sung_ and zeroed in on the place where her nimble fingers closed around the tented front of his pants. He remembers it so clearly, as if it was etched into the folds of his brain. He let’s himself be taken fully by the images flurrying back to his mind’s eye and watches it all unfold anew…

* * *

 

“Sober?” He asks her on a croak and he hopes so much she’ll say that she is but is ready to take a very cold shower if she finds that she isn’t. 

“Stone cold,” she breathes and aren’t those the magical words? 

He can’t help how he reacts, he really can’t. He’s like a dog that has been patiently waiting for its owner to make him food but he has such good manners, of course he waits until he’s being told that, _yes, now it’s okay to eat, go get it, boy_. And she said “Go get it, boy”, so he growls, or whimpers, he isn’t sure exactly what it is, and pulls her on top of him.

 

The effect of her straddling his lap is instant and mind-blowing. He’s wanted her for so long, he can’t believe that in a little while, he’ll actually get to do this with their clothes off. Still, while he wants to get there as soon as possible, he paces himself, remembering what they’d said about finish lines and enjoying the process. He wants to _enjoy_ this. So he bites down on Tessa’s collar bone lightly and collects himself. 

 

Alas, next thing he knows, she grinds her hips down against him and it becomes that much harder, all of it, mostly to keep himself paced. He tries, though, and snaps his head back from her chest to see what he’s doing as he puts both hands on her face and pulls her down to kiss her. She sighs into it blissfully while her hand moves down to fiddle with his belt-buckle.

“Hmph, Tess,” he says, muffled by her lips. “Bedroom?” (Because he really doesn’t want to do this on her couch for the first time in three years.)

 

She nods while still kissing him and so he does what he gets his money for, which is to lift her up, high and secure and because she’s damn strong and basically holds herself up on him by herself (like a cute little monkey), he can navigate them easily to the end of the hall and into her room. It isn’t big, pretty much laid out like his, even if her apartment is a little bigger than his. But either way, their condos came furnished with the same large king-sized beds, only that his is perpetually decked in dark and grey sheets and duvets, while hers is covered in off-white and champagne bedding, with way too many throw-pillows that he will have to throw off the bed in a bit one by one. Only first, he has to get her out of her clothes. 

 

He puts her down after he kicked the door closed with his foot and she opens her eyes to him, looking drunk and absolutely, stunningly beautiful as always. 

“Are you sure about this?” He asks her on instinct, just because she literally looks like she might topple over any second with desire.

“Hundred percent,” she smiles.

“Okay,” he says. And smirks at her. “Then take that off.”

 

He’s always been the bossier one in the bedroom between the two of them. He has never stopped to question why, although now with the insights from therapy colouring his thinking, he pauses. Because while it might be his way of expressing his sexuality, it might not be what she’s into. The thing that gets him off is to boss her around a bit to get things started (maybe because he is so completely fine with her basically running every other aspect of their lives), yet he halts when she begins to unbutton her floral blouse like he bid. 

 

“Wait,” he says, putting a hand on hers softly and tries to get a straight sentence out with what little blood is left in his brain. “Is this okay? I mean, I know we’re different styles in here, but like…I’ve always been the bossy one, eh? But is that okay for you? Do you enjoy that?”

“Scott,” she breathes and looks like she’s in awe of him. “We’ve always been _dancing._ I always give as good as I get, remember?” (She had said that to him once during the Carmen season, when he was fighting her on not having to go down on him because he was trying to show her that it wasn’t quid pro quo for him, that he just really, legitimately liked getting her off with his mouth.) 

“I love it. This. _You_ ,” Tessa says and brings him back into the moment. “Wanting me. Telling me what you want me to do. I _love_ it.”

“Okay,” he nods. “Just checking. I wanna do this right.”

 

“I appreciate it,” she smiles, glaring affection in her eyes, and then a glint of mischief as she shakes his hand off of her arm, popping the first button of her blouse open. “So…you want me to take this off?”

“Oh yeah,” he says, grinning back but she makes a face.

“Don’t be cute with me,” she orders and his face flips to brooding intensity by itself as if she’d just flicked a switch on him (which is probably the _entire_ thing about this…Scott only _thinks_ he’s the bossy one in the bedroom, but really, he probably always just did what she wanted him to do anyway, her enthusiastic obedience the one thing that actually made him _want_ to be bossy with her in the first place). He groans as she strips on, because it’s appropriate and because he knows she’ll get a kick out of it.

 

“I want you naked as the first day, Tessa Virtue,” he tells her severely and makes quick work of his shirt and belt, so he can watch her undress bare-chested and in his straining jeans. And Lord, bless the summer because he’s slipped out of his loafers by the door and has now no socks whatsoever to content with. Which is amazing because that means he can keep his eyes on her with single-minded focus, watching her muscles snap and bend under her creamy skin, her freckles dancing in the tint of the afternoon orange sunlight falling into the room as she steps out of her skirt once the blouse has fallen, having drifted like a feather to the ground.

 

Her underwear isn’t matching by a long shot, plain black hipster undies and a baby blue bra he thinks she might’ve had since _Umbrellas_ but he doesn’t mind at all, not a bit. 

“Off,” he rasps, waving in the general direction of her breasts. She complies. 

And he’s well aware that she’s always been a bit self-conscious of the size of them but they’re perky and round and perfect and her nipples (God, fuck, how he’s missed the sight of _those_ ) are pebbled already with arousal, beckoning him. But it’s not quite time. “Panties,” he says and she smirks.

 

 _Ah yes_ , she’s been waiting for this. Waiting to torture him a little bit and he’s so there for it, following her hands down with his eyes as she hooks her thumbs gingerly underneath the waistband sitting on her hips, her stomach flat, smooth and muscular. He breathes out a startled breath he can’t help as she takes her damn sweet time rolling the fabric off… _slowly_ …oh, so slowly, and then shimmies out of them with a dancer’s swivel of her hips. Gaping at her openly, he licks his lips. His dick is so hard, he has trouble standing upright, to be honest.

“Come here,” he tells her and after a moment, she heeds his plea.

 

His hands find her face on their own accord, working gently upwards to cup her jaw and push the few strands that had fallen out of her messy top bun and into her face back behind her small ears. She looks up at him like starlight and he honestly has no earthly idea how he deserves this magnificent woman. Even less so when she unbuttons his jeans and rips the zipper down, the movement unraveling his situation down there a little further. She chuckles devilishly, and glances down at where he towers in his boxer briefs, the fabric's stretch almost painfully, taut over him.

 

“What do you want me to do?” She asks him, her voice low and tiny, the one she only ever uses with him, here, when they do _this_. (The sense memory is almost enough to make him come undone right there and ruin his underwear and the subsequent half hour he’d probably need to recuperate.)

“Jesus, fuck, T,” he exhales, gripping her head harshly now with both hands and she moans, just a little. “I want your mouth.” He says honestly but then quickly adds, not overestimating his endurance with how starved he’s been for her these last few weeks (or hell, these past few _years_ ): “Just…go slow, or I’ll be useless in a minute.”

 

She laughs, like a bell and with her whole body and then that wonderful, wonderful body sinks down gracefully and measured and one of his hands stays on her head, knowing full well that he’ll need it to pull her back and pry her off of him once she gets going too hard for him to take. (For all the amazing traits she possesses, her genuine, personal fondness of sucking his dick sure does rank _very high_ with him in moments like this, he’s not gonna lie.) A shiver runs through the entire length of his body once she’s arrived on her knees and starts tucking down his pants and briefs and he barely manages to step out of them like a grown-up because _woah_ , his dick is free and loving it. (She helps and bless her for that, ‘cause he is literally _this_ close to keeling over. And _that_ should have told him what was going to happen in 3…2…1…)

 

“No, okay,” he says after she just blew a _breath_ across his skin for one literal damn second. “That’s not gonna…uh. Please, can you _please_ get up, I need a minute. I can’t. I’m gonna come right now if you do that.”

He’s slightly embarrassed, hoisting her back up and she’s almost pouting, but then she also looks a little bit amused and a lot pleased with herself, once she’s facing him again, back on her full feet, so his humiliation-levels stay in check.

“We’re gonna have to take care of you first,” he announces, pulling every muscle in his body tight and clenching his ass like a pathetic pre-teen with a _situation_ because he must absolutely keep it together right this moment. He has waited so long for this, he’s not gonna blow it now on fucking premature ejaculation or he’ll be actually _damned._ “Lie down, babe,” he tells her and gives her a gentle push towards the bed as he runs his hand down her bare back.

 

She moves as told and keeps her twinkling eyes on him and holy shit, he needs to get his business in order. He pulls tighter at his core still and climbs up onto her mattress after her and helps her throw those extra pillows carelessly to the ground. Once that’s done, she lowers herself down onto her elbows, watching as he nudges her thighs apart with slightly shaking hands and settles in between her legs. Reverently, he runs his palm down the inside of her right leg, up up up until she trembles and he looks away from where he was staring at his hands moving on her flesh to check back in.

“Is this okay?” He asks.

“Yes,” she exhales sharply and her chest rises and falls dramatically. _Good_. He smirks, trying for wicked and she bites her lip hard so he thinks it worked.

 

Carefully, he moves that hand in further and further yet until he brushes past her little curls and softly over and around her lips, lingering for a second to just marvel at her readiness. 

“Ah, babe, you’re actually killing me,” he mutters and squints his eyes shut to slow his body down. _Think of England_ , he chants inwardly. _And whatever you do, don’t fucking come._

 

He calms himself down the only way he knows how: by focusing completely on Tessa. Which comes naturally easily enough, especially when she cants her hips up to meet him as he works her open, mindful to build her up slowly. It isn’t long before he gets impatient though, his fingers no longer sufficient for what he wants to make her feel. So he bends, his busy hand continuing on, with his thumb drawing lazy circles (‘around, not on top, that’s important’ she’d once told him and he follows this command religiously) while the other comes to rest on her lower abdomen, stretched from her hip bone to her navel to keep her in place as he dives in to re-familiarise himself with her mechanics. 

 

Oh, and how he’s missed doing that. How he’s missed the taste of her, the sounds she makes, the way her body keens for him. How her breathing becomes frantic and loud and _yes, that, right there_ , when her hand comes flying down to fist into his hair and guide him, spur him on and direct him where she wants his tongue to linger. He does his due diligence, gauging her reactions and listening with one ear to the pitch of her moans (the higher, the better and when she whimpers so high it’s barely audible, that’s when it’s _good_ ). 

 

Testing, he flicks his tongue against her hard. Once, twice and listens. _Not quite there yet._ So he moves on to another spot and does the same. It’s getting better, but after a while he worries he might’ve plateaued her so he leans back out, let’s her catch her breath and only continues when she opens her eyes for him, shooting him a quizzical glance and then furrowing her brow at the pause. On the reboot he won’t make her beg for (not today), he brings his hand back for a shining reprise, working both his fingers and tongue in tandem until she’s writhing and _there_ they are finally, the mewls and whimpers.

 

 _Scott Moir, you still got it_ , he thinks, his mouth full of her and self-satisfaction colouring the back of his closed eyes. And his boner is finally manageable, _thank God._ Utterly blissful for the honour and the privilege to eat her out and go to fucking town on her, he hums against her flesh, giving voice to his contentedness. That’s when the hand in his hair flutters, splutters open and then grabs back down onto his scalp, scratching him hard and then yanking him back.

“ _Too much_ ,” she pants and Scott learns that the way they’d used that fucking cue so far has conditioned him like a lab rat to fucking black out for a second with wild, screaming desire. Good to know, _wow._

 

Momentarily dazed, he shifts away, far enough out to look up at her, licking his lips because they’re sticky. 

“ _That_ good?” He asks smugly, wiggling his eyebrows (and she would laugh at the silliness usually but by the death glare she shoots him he knows that they are already past that point). 

“Fuck you,” she pants, laboured and breathy. 

 _And there’s an idea._ “Oh, _should_ I?” 

 

The look she gives him in response is so hilariously thirsty, for lack of a better term, that he can’t help the utterly dim-witted laugh that escapes him. He still pushes the two fingers that had stilled in her back in and out now, though. Which is a feat considering he is shifting his weight to not loose balance as he takes his other hand from her belly to his and down to stroke himself. He is on the second pump down, has barely closed his eyes to deal with the familiar sensation of his own hand on his cock, when she yelps sharply. And then her muscles clench around his fingers erratically as she comes, writhing, long and _hard._ His eyes fly open to watch her come apart.

 

_Fuck yeah._

 

“Baby, your _face_ ,” he murmurs, watching her and slowly retracts his fingers before changing hands for what he's still doing. “So beautiful.”

He moans at her wetness that he spreads onto himself, which makes running his fingers up and down his length again so easy and so damn good, he gets lost in it for a moment, shutting his eyes to bask in it while Tessa gathers her bearings. 

 

Still, when she’s back, she’s _back_ and the bed shakes with her wiggling away from him, turning over or something because when he opens his eyes back up, she is lying on her belly, her knees on her pillow and legs kicking the air, while she’s all yoga-up-dog up in the place, propped on her  sturdy hands, getting that extension of her back just right. But then he can’t marvel at her yoga-chops any longer because she literally bites the hand that is leisurely jerking himself off and when he draws it back, she’s already closed his lips around him. _God damn_ , that woman. He could cry, she is that amazing.

 

She hollows her cheeks around him, creating something of a vacuum and a sharp pull further between her lips and in turn, his part to make way for an “oh” so delicate, he surprises himself. Oh, this is _good_ , this is way too good. He never wants to leave this bedroom, never wants to go outside again, never wants anyone but her. It’s quite frankly laughable how quickly she has him right back on the brink and he was right about the hand in her hair at least, because when the time comes, he does have to pry her off of him. She literally fights him on it, like a piranha on a mission, and he has to call her name twice until she snaps out of it.

 

“Will you let me come inside you, in God’s name?!” He asks her exasperatedly with what little breath he has left, his dick pointing to the ceiling between them, pulsing in anticipation. 

“Really? In _God’s name_?” Tessa mutters, raising an eyebrow and he has to laugh.

“Haven’t you heard, he’s in love with me?” He shrugs referencing the song he had played her in that session a while ago, feeling very clever. “Seems appropriate.” 

She snorts out a laugh which he can’t help but join in and remembers in that moment when the laughter mixes in with the arousal that this has been special to their sex over all the years. That he had always laughed with her at some point of it, more and harder than with anybody else ever and he loves that. He loves _her_. He wants to _make_ love to her. Right now. So he goes on to.

 

He lifts her up easily, reaching under her armpits where she hovers by his hips and drags her up until they’re both kneeling on her bed and she’s still giggling when he starts running his hands up and down her frame and does so, until those giggles turn into gasps. Then he kisses her, because it’s been a shameful long time since he’s last done that. She pushes, harder this time, taking full charge of the kiss and folding her arms around his shoulders, pulling him in and trapping his length between their bodies in that wonderful, promising way. He groans a bit, helpless in her wake, and melts into her as much as he can without toppling them over. She grins against his lips, pecks them once and then dips down to nibble at his neck, from his earlobe, down to his shoulder and he shudders at the attention and her teeth grazing his skin. 

“Hmmh, babe,” he murmurs into her hair. “How do you want me? I won’t last long right now, want it to be good for you.”

 

Instead of answering, she puts her strong, assured hands on him and then gently tilts him over backward until he gets the message and goes down willingly, holding her arms as she climbs on him, straddling him. She pushes him further, to the point that he’s lying flat on his back with her looking down at him, perched up and smiling. 

“That okay?” She asks, already knowing the answer.

“Baby, I want you to know that I’ll do my best but I might really have to make it up to you later, okay?” He says, warning her with the last of his mental capacities, because knowing his body, he’s hanging by a thread as it is.

“Scott,” she whispers, an edge of exasperation in her voice. “It’s fine, we have time. Just come, I wanna watch you.”

* * *

 

“ _Scott_ ,” she hisses on a breath as he turns, the sound almost imperceptible, several weeks later on the floofy carpet in their therapist’s office. She has a reason. Because he has just flipped them around in the middle of the dream journey to Autumn Classics they’re supposed to be on (and she might be while he is _definitely_ not). Now he is the one cowering over her, turning his hot flushed face into the crook of her neck breathing in her shampoo. That’s not why he flipped them though. He’s flipped them because he’s getting hard and he needs to hide it. (And that is admittedly a consequence he could have foreseen when he decided to walk through their sex life instead of the preparations for a competition skate in his head but does that mean he’ll let a measly nostalgic boner stop him?! Absolutely not.)

 

“What the hell?” Comes Tessa’s on-ice whisper, the one that they don’t have to move their lips for, right after he pushes his growing erection against her thigh and he turns the groan threatening to escape his throat into a sigh by a hair. She pinches him in the side and it’s adorable that she thinks this will do anything to quench his palpable desire.

“Ow,” he hums at the deliciously sharp pain, spurred on and unable to help it.

“Hey, guys,” JF voice calls, interrupting his visualisation of their warm-up phase to call them to order. “Focus.”

“Listening,” Scott croaks into Tessa’s neck and she ‘ _tsk_ ’s at him. 

 

But she doesn’t move away or tell on him either. He doesn’t know if she does so to preserve his honour, cover for him or because she likes it but when he slightly turns his face further in to press his lips down onto her neck (not quite a kiss but also not not-a-kiss, the way he does when they’re skating and any body part of hers is in reach for it), she shudders and so he opts for the last explanation. 

“Relax,” he breathes into her skin, so close and so low that JF will never hear. Tessa shifts her hips ever so slightly and oh, yeah, right up against his jugular. _Yup, she likes it._  

* * *

 

The additional physical stimulation is honestly just what he needs to hike his memory up to its deserving conclusion, to that moment when she lowered herself down on him, sinking deeper, tight and wet and hot, welcoming him back like a long lost wanderer finally home. He’d moaned from the base of his being, trying to feel into every edge of his body, surging into their connection, grabbing her thighs split apart over him and digging in his fingernails, pulling her down further until nothing else could have fit between their bodies, not _even_ God. There was only Tessa and him on her bed on sunny August day. Until she started moving, which was when the bed and the day and August and the rest of the entire world fell away too. Leaving Tessa and him, alone in the universe. 

She rode him. Hot, slow and mind-bending with that genius almost circular motion to her hip she added to the thrusts down that blurred his entire existence into nothing but the way she felt around him. He lost time in her, doesn’t know how long he really lasted in the end, only that she grabbed his chin as soon as she started to feel him shiver to his orgasm and yanked his head up from where it had lulled to the side bonelessly. 

 

“Look at me,” she ordered, a cue, which he followed on reflex and locked eyes with her, staring intensely as his entire galaxy crushed down on him, expanded, then shrunk together, got tiny and coiled and edged on to the brink of a black hole and then it snapped, exploded, released him, sent stars flying and meteor showers raining in ripples, burning and singeing and rocking him from head to toe. 

 

 _Fuck, I want this. Only this for the rest of my fucking life_ , he had thought, although it had felt more like a concept than actual words, because those were hard to come by.

 

Tessa watched every wave running through him with a wicked pleasure, arching her back and riding him out as he emptied himself into her, heart and soul and come, all parts of him, all hers. He’d never seen anything as beautiful as Tess, gazing down at him with her hands dug into his chest, watching him fall apart for her like he was the most precious creature she had ever laid eyes upon. He had felt so loved, so sated and so overwhelmed with it all, he hardly noticed that there were actually tears in his eyes by the end of it.

 

“I love you so much,” he’d choked out, shocked by the intensity of his emotions (because usually, once he’d come he’d go all flat for a while and feel nothing, unlike right now where he felt _everything_ loud and clear and immediate) and she had snapped down and kissed his cheeks and the corners of his eyes where he was half-crying for her and smiled through it all. 

 

He got hard again while still inside her and the second time, he made it worth her while.

* * *

 

“And then you’re in your opening position,” Scott can hear JF in the distance as his memory fizzles out to sighs and hands twisting in sheets and hot little texts she’d sent him and Sunday morning showers trying to get the angles right standing up. “The music starts and here’s your first cue…”

 

Thankfully, Scott has a whole Free dance worth of cues still left to visualise, which does the job of evening out the situation in his pants, so everything is fine by the end of that session (he even feels more confident about their skating getting back to standard soon, even if he’d only paid attention for the last bit of the exercise). Yes, honestly, everything is sunshine and roses.

 

Except for Tessa, as he will later learn, when she drags him into the deserted yoga-studio in Scotty Livingston’s gym, bars the door with a thirty kilo bar-bell she carries herself like it’s nothing and then demands he fuck her against the door and damn him if he doesn’t make quick work of it.

 

(He will do just that. Because he _can_ and because she’s his best girl and he will do absolutely everything she asks of him. Including growing his hair out, like she had asked that first time. He doesn’t care, he’s putty in her hands. Whatever Tessa wants, Tessa gets. From now until the day he dies.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...wanna marry this Scott yet? I sure as hell do..
> 
> Yell at me on twitter if you like @EllieCarina (but if you yell at me in the comments, I will love you forever) <3


	12. ...Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!!PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR A TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!!
> 
> Thursday on a Wednesday!
> 
> I'm back! And while I'll probably won't be able to update daily, I'm hoping to wrap this up fairly quickly...but we still have a little ways to go.
> 
> I missed you all a lot and I hope you missed the story a little bit too and leave me your thoughts at the end :)  
> Thank you so much for the continued support! Especially to justtotallyplatonic this instalment because she beta'd this chapter for me and told me were to tweak because I hated it at first :D
> 
> !!!!!!PLEASE SEE TRIGGER WARNING: Brief mention of loss of pregnancy!!!!!!

Thursday 4:04 PM, September 8th 2016

 

Is it still ironic that the week JF has announced their session topic to be “truth” is the one week Tessa has been sitting on an actual secret for four days or is it already tragic? She isn’t sure. But then again, she is also not all the way inclined to delve into the question because she has way better things to do, which is to freak out every second she doesn’t manage to distract herself. And it’s not cute freakouts like about potentially messing up twizzles because of sleeping with Scott or about putting something edible on the table with how crappy of a cook she is. No, her freakouts in the past week have been earth-shattering and bone-crushing, made even worse by the fact that she barely had time for them (let alone get her head around the issue) because Scott has been around her 24/7 and she couldn’t have him know. Hadn’t had a clue how to tell him, how she _could_ have.

 

Which means that she had been hiding and losing her mind in secret, feeling dirty and deceitful…she just simply does not have the heart to come clean. It would change _everything_. Potentially, it could destroy them. And they are so good together right now that the thought alone hurts so much, she could keel over from it at any moment. Because it’s _so good_. They have the week off after Labour Day and Scott has come with her to the cottage, taking in the Bayfield sun and making sure that they were living their mini-vacation to the fullest. 

 

He goes and drives out twenty minutes every morning to the next town to get breakfast rolls (he says they’re the best there but they both know he’s trying not to get spotted so close to her). He took her shopping in London three times and to go look at antiques nearby once, endlessly patient, walking side by side with her and carrying her bags and taking her pictures at the beach like a five-star-boyfriend. And at night…at night he sleeps next to her, snoring softly and waking up from it a couple of times and apologises when he finds her awake, offering to sleep in another room if he’s annoying and it breaks her heart. Because she isn’t awake because his snoring keeps her up, she’s awake because she has a secret and she doesn’t know how to tell him.

 

So she tells him it’s fine and nestles in against his chest and either she waits until he’s asleep again or until he starts kissing her, deciding that he might as well sleep after. Those moments, she revels in. Making love to him in when she forgets, when she lives only in the moment, encircled by his arms, safe there and sheltered from the uncertainty she carries in her heart. He doesn’t know. 

 

He’s so happy every day, _beaming_ more than anything. He can’t see the shadow over her smile and she doesn’t make it easy to see for him either. That’s maybe the worst of it all. The way she is able to hide. Even with how well he knows her, with how much they love each other. He doesn’t know because she is doing everything in her power to make sure that he doesn’t. Like way back when…when that nagging, sharp pain in her shins just wouldn’t go away and Scott couldn’t know because it was his career on the line as well. His shot at Olympic Gold. And doesn’t history have a damn tragic way of repeating itself?!

 

“…that is to say you don’t need to reveal anything to each other today,” JF says and Tessa realises that he has been talking for a while from his spot on her laptop screen, placed on the kitchen table. “We can easily just speak about the biology of truth-telling versus lying and talk about it theoretically. This is not supposed to be honesty hour. Unless you want it to be.”

Tessa urges herself to get her head back into the game but it’s hard with the nerves. It’s very apropos, JF’s whole approach to today and she knows that it’s a sign. The grace period is over. She has to tell Scott and she can’t wait anymore, can’t sit on what happened any longer. And so maybe it is a blessing that JF brought up the topic of truth, maybe it’s best to do this while he is still just a small screen away and in reach to help them deal with the fallout.

 

 _Bandaid_ , Tessa thinks and takes a breath to steady herself, to try and find the strength to tell the truth and pray to God that she doesn’t break them beyond repair — only then Scott speaks first.

“I got something,” he announces into her inhale and cuts her off short. “…I mean, there’s something I haven’t really said out loud yet and I think it’s time. It feels wrong to not talk about it.”

“What is it?” Tessa asks him automatically, unsure if she is happy about the distraction or not. Also curious to hear what Scott has been keeping from her. And worried. Should she be worried? Had she missed something while making sure Scott missed something?

“About Kaitlyn,” Scott says and Tessa’s heart sinks. “About the real reason why we broke up.” 

 

“Scott, you really don’t have to,” Tessa promises him which is to say: _Please, let’s not bring this up, we’ve done so well keeping_ that _thing out of_ this _thing so far. I don’t want to think about it. Not right now with all that’s happening and I already feel like the worst person alive._

“Yes, I do, we both do,” Scott insists and takes her hand to make her look in his eyes where they wait for hers, firm and determined. “We’re starting something here, Tess. Let’s do it the right way.”

 

And of course he is right but Tessa doesn’t want him to be. She’s in no shape to deal with another set of offences she’s given, her composure hanging by a thread as it is. But then again what can she do? Scott looks at her so tenderly and encouragingly, she can’t shut him down, can’t do a damn thing but let him do what he set out to do. He means well, she knows it. Still that doesn’t matter that she is happy to accommodate him. Not this time.

 

“So, last year, when we decided to come back…I broke up with Kaitlyn a day later,” Scott begins after a deep breath and she doesn’t know if he tells her or JF. Their therapist listens intently from his lookout on the table and Tessa resigns herself to doing the same. “I drove from London to Winnipeg and…told her. I broke up with her because of the comeback, because I knew, or I hoped, Tessa and I would...that this would happen.”

“I know,” she says to Scott and he drops her hand.

 

“No, you don’t know. You really don’t, T,” he tells her intently and she can tell how important it is for him to have this conversation. “I treated her like crap, before. And this isn’t to blame you or our comeback or _this_. But I need you to know. I need you to understand what I did because that still messes with me some days.” He speaks slow and measured, tentative, and like he has said those words before, like he had already devoted some time to finding the words and figuring out in what way to phrase them so it means what he wants for them to mean.

 

“And I get angry at myself for the way I handled things and there are feelings of…blame, I think,” he continues. “Which are misguided, I’m aware of that. But sometimes I get angry for having had to do it, if that makes sense, and then I try to pin the blame on other things…and on you, sometimes."

“I never asked you to leave her,” Tessa says, automatically, trying and failing to bring the same level-headed reflexion to it that Scott does and landing instead on a petty, teenager’s whine.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Scott sighs. “Rationally, I know that. But that doesn’t change how I feel in those instances.”

 

“But doesn’t that mean that a part of you _does_ blame me?” She is arguing, she knows it, but she can’t help herself. There is a reluctance in her in the face of talking about this whole thing that feels like a solid brick wall, too hard to climb or walk around. And here’s Scott, chipping away at it regardless.

“No. I blame…myself and _us_ ,” he says. “This whole thing between us. The fact that we can’t get away from each other, never could have. And that’s alright, I’m so…I’m so happy right now, I wouldn’t want to have it any other way, I wouldn’t change a damn thing. Only sometimes I get weird about it. Because of the guilt, I guess, and feeling ashamed. And it’s best if you know it, so you understand why I react the way I react at times, see why I get defensive and where that’s coming from.”

 

And those are a strings of words in combination that have Tessa squint her eyes at him first and then turn over to JF and tax him through the camera lens. “Did you have secret sessions alone without telling me?”

“A couple. It’s not a conscious secret, though,” JF gives up easily. She _knew_ it. Her partner had already sounded too therapised in his reflections…which equates to the fact that he has worked through all of it on his own before. 

 

But that might even be a good thing. Because it means that now, he only wants to go over it just once more with her for closure…and that will likely be easier to handle than having him process and unpack it all for the first time with her present (because that could also lend itself to him getting angry at her for her behaviour back then…which would not bode well for the behaviour of the last week that she will have to explain to him sooner or later in this session). “Scott just preferred talking to me over getting another psychologist involved for himself.” 

 

“So this _is_ honesty hour after all,” Tessa says dryly to their psychologist who shrugs but not sheepishly.

“Well, we _do_ have talked a little bit about this, yes,” JF says calmly. “And I’m here to help keep the conversation productive. But I do agree with Scott that he should talk over it with you.” 

“Okay,” she concedes and vows to try and keep herself together, to do Scott the favour of working with him through this time in their lives, mostly because she knows that this one thing she’d done back then hadn’t been exactly fair and this is the least she can do to try and make up for it. (Even if she does feel a little blindsided and still very much not in the right condition to listen to Scott blame her for breaking up with his girlfriend for another twenty minutes.) “Where do you want to start?” 

 

“I guess when it started to change between us? When we started getting better?” Scott says and she turns her attention back to him again, finding him searching for her eyes, open and vulnerable and it takes all that she has to not start crying. _I’m lying to you, I don’t deserve your trust, I don’t deserve you, I messed it all up_ , she thinks and tries to focus on his words hard enough to drown herself out. Everything hurts. The present and the past, in equal measure, with that one uniting feature: her inability to tell him the truth when it really matters, when it’s about the rest of their lives. She really doesn’t deserve him. How could she? He would never do this to her, not ever. Scott would rather die. But she can’t seem to stop disappointing him, time and time and time again. And what does that say about her?

 

“I know that you were trying hard then…in the beginning of 2015,” Scott carries on, none the wiser of the turmoil in her head. “I knew that you were making such an effort to be happy for me. But I also knew…I think by April at the latest, that you were jealous as fuck. And that…that didn’t let me go.”

 

Tessa looks at her hand, guilty and called out. He is right, everything he said is true. She had tried _so_ hard to be happy for him that year but she’d been so jealous and afraid to lose him that she couldn’t hide it, hadn’t managed to and instead, which was even worse, had taken all her feelings out on the ice with them. Out to “Say It Right” and “How Will I Know?” and put her body up close to his, trying to keep him there. Unfairly, sleazy, almost. She’d felt like garbage, all that time but had been unable to stop herself. But she’d never told him, never come out and said it...only pined and longed and ached for him. And lied and lied and lied. 

 

“I was with Kaitlyn and the relationship was finally working right and like, comfortable and _going places_ but I always came back to thinking about you being jealous of her. Of the way you held me when we skated, like you didn’t want to let me go,” Scott continues, not helping Tessa’s feeling rotten one bit. “You know, at the start of it with Kait, I was so mad at you, I threw myself into her like I was trying to forget you existed. But the moment I got over being angry at you for leaving, I was right back to where we’ve always been. To you being the most important person in my life.”

 

“Scott, I-,” Tessa tries. To get him to stop, to wait, to interrupt because she feels ready to be ill. She needs to tell him. She needs to tell him her secret before it blows them apart. Because he is also the most important person in her life and how can she keep lying to him? How can she keep going on with the hiding and sneaking around and not telling him the _truth_?

 

“No, please,” he says with an earnest need to keep going and takes her hand again, squeezing and begging her to let him go on. And what can she do but allow him to? “I feel like I, I made her love me in those first couple of months and when I wasn’t drunk, I was playing this perfect boyfriend to her and put everything into overdrive. I introduced her to everyone so quickly, introduced her to you to make you hurt but also to prove to her that that thing with you and me, that it wasn’t _real_ , that you weren’t a threat. I coddled her, I made her believe that I was in a place where I could make the sober decision to start a committed relationship.”

 

Scott’s gaze has dropped to their hands where they lie intertwined between them on a mustard yellow couch cushion, dropped right along with his voice that has gone brittle and pensive. “And then I play-acted like I could have that kind of relationship for a year. And by the end of it, it was sort of true. We _were_ committed to making it work. And I loved her. But I never loved her the way I said I did, the way I pretended I did. I was happy with her and she was amazing but it was never…it was never the whole truth.” 

“Scott,” Tessa tries again. 

 

_Please don’t declare your love for me every two minutes. I‘m worthless. I don’t deserve it._

 

“Tess, please, let me finish,” he asks, gazing up at her with bare naked urgency. “She started looking into changing teams to be closer to me. And I told her we could move into the house together. She’d helped renovate it when she was there over the weekends and she…she started looking for like, colours and furniture. She was planning to move in with me, start fresh with another team and uproot her entire life and I wasn’t…I wasn’t even really _invested_. I didn’t really care, I just said yes to everything because I thought I had to.”

And it seems that this is one of the hardest things for him to get out, because Tessa knows that the one thing Scott really can’t abide is people going about their lives with just half a heart.

 

“I was going through the motions,” he says, naming the thing he hates the most. “I had…resigned myself to a future with her. And I mean…isn’t that terrible? Isn’t that the worst thing I could have done? Because she kept asking me, you know…’ _do you like this colour for the bedroom? I have an offer from a Hamilton team, should I take it? I was thinking by September I could move permanently, what do you say?’_ And I never said anything. I was pretending like I was committed to her but I couldn’t commit to _anything._ And then you and me…and the way you looked at Kaitlyn and I when we were together…I felt something again. For the first time since you left that day at my parent’s, I felt like myself again. And I tried to ignore it, I tried to pretend that it didn’t matter anymore. But then…Scotland happened.”

 

And there’s the kicker.

 

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Tessa says, the guilt flaring up like it always does. And she can’t believe that they’d made it through months and months of therapy having managed to not bring this up.

“You wouldn’t have had the chance to if I hadn’t wanted it,” Scott tells her, wringing their hands closer together. “I could have stopped you.”

“It was wrong,” Tessa insists and just like that the rolling hills, the hallowed castle halls and windy hills of Scotland come back to her, flashing before her mind’s eye with the memories of that night. 

 

It’s all still fresh in her brain even if it’s been over a year now. It feels like it happened just yesterday. The stuffy feeling in her chest just remembering flares up again, pulling at her insides, flooding her with guilt and uneasiness. She had gone into that whole thing knowing full well that it was going to be a mess: The Gold Medal Plates trip, a sort of charity vacation where people who could afford it buy a trip with Olympians, musicians and other Canadian personalities of note to some far off, nice destination to hear them speak about their success or play acoustic sets in pubs. 

 

When they had been approached about joining the list of celebs, Scott had told her on the day that Kaitlyn had gotten an invite, too. And if maybe Tessa thought it would be weird to all go. And at that time, she’d been so desperately trying to come off like _no, she absolutely wouldn’t mind and she loved Kaitlyn and was so, so,_ so _happy for them,_ she’d told him to not be silly and their agent ‘yes’ on the spot. (If you’d asked her how she felt on the plane to Scotland where the trip was headed to a couple of months later, she’d have said that she had been a giant idiot who’d had no idea what she’d been thinking.)

 

Being with Scott and his girlfriend for a week with nowhere to go really was hellish. But also, at the same time, not so bad at all in many aspects. Still, the parts that were horrible, had been _excruciatingly_ horrible _._ And of course they’d had spent time together before, the three of them. But that had always been just evenings at events or an odd day out here or there and Tessa had always functioned knowing that she could tap out any time she liked. 

 

But in Scotland, there was nowhere to go. She couldn’t leave. And even if they did some activities separately and weren’t together all the time, sure thing Scott and Kaitlyn were at breakfast together every morning and at dinner every night. And had a room down the hall from Tessa which was probably the worst of it all. She knew intelectually that with the thick castle walls it was impossible that she would hear them but she still thought she did. She thought she heard him moan three doors over, sleeping with another woman and it _killed_ her.

 

Watching Scott with Kaitlyn was difficult, for little reasons like the way he tucked her hair back behind her ears or rested his palm on her butt when they stood around somewhere, or when their eyes met across the breakfast hall when Kaitlyn was loading extra eggs on her plate because Scott was too lazy to get up and go himself. She sat with them at breakfast every single morning. Left or right of Scott, wherever Kaitlyn had not sat that morning. Which had been his way of showing Tessa that he wanted her around and another to show Kaitlyn that he wouldn’t ever exclude his skating partner from his life (even if maybe there were enough moments that he really, really should). 

 

Tessa and Kaitlyn went along with it though, smiling through what they both sensed was a little weird. In general, they did a lot of smiling through Scott’s weirdness on that trip, (for example his running off at weird intervals not to be found again for several hours), but what set the two of them apart from each other was that Kaitlyn had no idea what was going on, whereas Tessa felt in her bones what was happening. 

 

She saw right through what Scott was doing, how he was trying to navigate _them_ again, navigate Tessa-and-Scott and the rest of the world. And he hadn’t done that in a very long time at that point. It made her happy, it had made her so happy, she had fallen into a pit of guilt and self-loathing because she found herself vying for his attention, getting closer to him when she could, indulging people where she could when they asked them to dance for them (as if they were monkeys)…just for the chance to touch him. 

 

When she remembers this now and contrasts the sheer agony it was to not be his declared number one like she was right now, it still stings. The memory of having to share that spot with someone else who was asked first if she wanted to sit next to Scott at a restaurant or on the bus, the one that was asked to take pictures with him and other couples. The one who was his best girl. Not Tessa, not like right now in Montreal where everyone from the B2Ten staff to every last couple at Gadbois knew that they are _#VirtueMoir_ and they go everywhere together and if anybody ever looked for Scott, they came to her and if anybody ever wanted anything from her, they went through him. They are a unit now, a perfect ball of two humans meshed into one. (And she prays that her secret will not tear that wonderful state of things apart and rip it into sad, angry shreds. Because right now, it’s honestly the happiest she ever remembers being.)

 

But back then, there’d been no united outside front and intimate inside comfort. They hadn’t kissed in the privacy of their bed rooms, hadn’t stolen away to her Mom’s cottage to spend some days off like a real, boring, regular couple, they hadn’t chased flies out of their bedroom so they could sleep in peace or spent days strolling down the shore of the lake trying not to hold hands, lest anybody saw them. The only thing that had been the exact same back then as it was now, was that Tessa lying to him and hating every second of it, hating _herself_ every second for it. And oh, she had, she had hated herself with the same fervour she does now.

 

It was the third night into that trip to Scotland that Tessa had resolved herself to be better, to stop trying to steal another woman’s boyfriend and be happy as it was due for her _best_ friend. She didn’t have the right to torpedo his relationship. She didn’t have any rights to him at all anymore. Not after “I’m sorry, Scott, I can’t do this” and watching him drink his life away uselessly for half a year. He was just getting to a place where he seemed stable and positive, looking forward and thinking about a future for himself. How was Tessa to fuck that up by complicating everything for him? What did she think gave her the right? Her feelings for him? No. She didn’t get to do that anymore. Feelings be damned. This was about Scott and his happiness. And she could not ruin that for him, no matter how much she was hurting.

 

So she had switched gears. She forced herself to watch when Scott kissed Kaitlyn and to smile upon it with a sort of easy grace that wasn’t easy by a mile but she kept at it. She made friends with Kaitlyn, in earnest and with a vigour. She dedicated an entire three hour bus ride to an old Highlander village to playing “Inside The Actors Studio” with her, which was basically just an interview conducted by Tessa about anything and everything that popped to mind (she’d used to play that for hours on end with Scott in the car to this or that competition and had never been bored for a minute). 

 

She’d found it only underlined what she knew to be true anyway: that Kaitlyn was utterly likeable, so likeable that it was damned impossible to hate her. And she was so similar to Scott that after half an hour, Tessa felt like she’d known her her whole life and that she loved her a little bit, too. And it made sense that he was happy with her. Kaitlyn was incredible, it was easy to imagine that she could be the one. She could make Scott the happiest guy, be given his name and have his babies and it took everything Tessa had to pretend to be okay with that. But she would be okay with it eventually, she swore this to herself. 

 

And on one of the last nights, she decided to tell Scott as much. They’d sat in the pub watching Miku sing, the back-up singer of Johnny Reid who was the music-celebrity on the trip, and she’d done a solo, a beautiful rendition of “What’s Love”, the lyrics floating through the packed pub and Tessa knew Scott was going to look for her eyes before he even raised his head.

 

_You must understand though the touch of your hand_

_Makes my pulse react_

_That it's only the thrill of boy meeting girl_

_Opposites attract_

_It's physical_

_Only logical_

_You must try to ignore that it means more than that_

 

His eyes found hers as predicted before the first chorus even started, telling her what she already knew. This was a song about them. Which meant that it went on the list for songs to skate to. And then Tessa saw the look on Kaitlyn’s face as she noticed what had happened. How her boyfriend and his skating partners had locked eyes across a crowded room and had made everybody else disappear for a while. How it was just them in the universe and nothing else mattered. And Tessa shrivelled in the face of that look. 

 

It was pain and sorrow but the resigned kind, like Kaitlyn wasn’t even surprised, just shocked that she had to witness it unfold right in front of her. Like she had just waited for this to happen and was ready to just get up and leave, or maybe empty her glass onto Scott’s dress shirt and yell “I _knew_ it”. Scott noticed too, neck snapping over to Kaitlyn and even if Tessa couldn’t hear what he had said, she knew he was trying to cover both their asses with humour, explaining with a joke and smoothing the moment over. 

 

Kaitlyn did laugh eventually, rolling her eyes with a sort of bemused fondness in a way that Tessa could feel on her own face from sense memory...because that was just the way Scott made people regard him. Her skating partner on his end seemed appeased, even from a distance. But Tessa knew that things had to change. She couldn’t keep doing this. _They_ couldn’t. If either of them should ever have the chance at a happy relationship with someone, Tessa-and-Scott needed to finally disentangle themselves from each other.

 

At the end of the night, she texted him to meet her at the beach beneath their hotel at midnight and to come alone and bring wine from the minibar. She greeted him in the pale gloom of the moonlight reflected from the sea, the waves softly rolling onto the rocks of the shoreline, holding out her own half-empty wine-bottle for him to clink with in the chilly breeze.

“What up, T-Dog?” He had asked her over a grin. “Sounded urgent…need me to hide a body for you in the dead of night?”

 

“Not exactly,” Tessa had smiled despite herself. God, she loved him. She was _in_ love with him, no matter how hard she tried not to be. No matter how many months she had tried to figure out who she was if she wasn’t his, she still couldn’t shake those feelings for him. It wasn’t fair. “I need to talk to you.”

“Oh boy,” he’d said and then watched her take a giant swig from the bottle. “That bad?”

“Scott, we can’t do this anymore,” she told him, flat out. “ _I_ can’t do this anymore. I’m not being fair to you, or Kaitlyn. And I want to apologise for that.”

 

“Tess, what are you talking about?” He had asked her, sincerely puzzled. “You can’t do _what_ anymore?”

“Holding on to you,” she had answered and taken a step towards him to take his free hand into hers. “I can’t keep treating you like you belong to me. You don’t. I have to…let you go. For both our sakes and for Kaitlyn. You’re…planning a future with her, I can’t keep standing in the way of that, it’s not fair.”

 

“I don’t understand,” he’d said, visibly confused now and drank from his own wine for a moment but more to have something to do while he thought about what to say next than to take the edge off, she believed. “You’re not…you’re not holding on…” The way he’d looked up from putting his bottle onto the ground between them, told her that he knew he was lying. That they were both aware that they’d picked up playing tug-of-war and push-and-pull with each other in the beginning of the year as if not a day had passed since before Sochi, since Carmen, since Umbrellas. “…To me.”

“Yes, I am.” She’d said and emptied her wine with diligence, spilling a good third of it past the corners of her mouth. “I was, but that’s over now.” 

She had tossed the bottle and dragged her sleeve across her mouth to dry it and then offered him her hand for a handshake and tried for a smile. “This is my formal goodbye, Scott Moir. I’m setting you free.”

“What does that even mean?” He had asked, looking quite forlorn in the dim light and ignored her hand until she took it down unshaken. “Do you not want to skate with me anymore?”

 

“No, I do,” she’d hurried to say. “I absolutely do, I think it’s even about time that we sat down for real and really talked about if we want to come back and try for another Olympics. But _this_ …,” she’d gestured between them, “this has to end. We need to be…proper work-friends now. Business partners, you know? Not hang out so much, not be so complicated, so you can focus on your relationship. And I need to stop trying to get close to you.”

 

“You were?” He had asked weakly, knowing the answer and she took a step towards him, because his eyes had started to glisten and she didn’t want him to cry. 

“You know I’ll always love you,” she’d whispered and put a tentative hand on his face, trying to ignore the jolt it send down her body when he sighed into the touch, leaned into her palm and closed his eyes for a second. “There’s a part of me that will always be yours, Scott. Always. But it’s time. It’s time to say goodbye. To this. To us, to this part of us.”

 

And just like that, she had been crying too, because goddamnit, she hadn’t expected it to be this hard. How could it be this hard saying her farewell to something that wasn’t even real? He wasn’t even hers, why did it feel like she was breaking up with him? And how could one person take this much pain? She still ponders that today, hoping to not repeat this kind of suffering once she told him the truth.

 

“T,” he had croaked, broken and strained on that harsh scottish shore and the dam broke on a sob. She couldn’t help her body surging forward, closing the last bit of distance between them and hugged him tight, so tight and held him, not holding her own tears back because she couldn’t. His hands flew up to her head, clutching at her scalp and they stood there like children, crying and crying, saying goodbye to what had once been the rest of their life, to what always had been unsaid but felt inevitable. And suddenly wasn’t anymore. Finally, she pried herself loose for him, smoothing his hair out, then running along the sides of his face and then pulled him in.

 

She kissed him selfishly, impulsively and desperate, because it was going to be the last time. This was going to be her kiss goodbye to the love of her life and she couldn’t let him go without it. He kissed her back fervently and she let herself enjoy it with only a smidge of guilt and broke away only when she absolutely did need to breathe fully again. She found her tear-streaked expression mirrored in his. 

 

“I wish you all the love in the world, Scott Moir,” she’d muttered with a broken little voice. “You deserve to be so happy. _So, so_ happy.”

“Tessa,” he had said, the protest and arguments already etching to the surface, an air of possibility flickering in his eyes, as if he was ready to throw his entire life into the pyre right where they stood and take her away from that place but she wouldn’t let him, wouldn’t let him ruin this relationship that had been so good for him, not for her sake. She still hadn’t found herself, still didn’t know who she was, still didn’t know if the love she felt for him could be contained in her or if she was always going to be too afraid of it. If she was always going to be afraid that he only loved the girl that had moulded herself around his moods since she had been a child.

“No,” is what she said to him, because of  all of this. “Don’t fight me on this. Come on. I’ll walk you back to your room. You got this great, amazing thing going with Kaitlyn and I’ll hate myself forever if I come between that.”

 

He had muttered something under his breath that she hadn’t been sure what it was until recently, being drowned out by the noise of the waves as they had turned to leave.

“You’re always gonna be between that,” it might have been, she ‘d thought back then but had elected to not believe that. Now she does. 

 

“It was _us_ , Tess. It was always us,” Scott whispers, bringing her back into the present. “When we kissed, I…I felt like I was dying and like, getting resurrected at the same time. And I got so scared. I got so terrified that with Kait and I, that that was really going to be my life. You made this great big show of letting me go and telling me goodbye on that fucking beach and to me it felt like coming _home_. Like I’d been lost for a year and got found again.”

 

The way he looks at her tears her heart open and hearing what that kiss had been like for him, even more so. Tessa hadn’t wanted to confuse him, she had wanted to do just what she’d told him. To set him free to live his best life without the shackles of Tessa-and-Scott, without being forever bound to her side. And now to know for sure that her selfish lapse of judgement had dismantled his relationship, it’s terrible. She feels terrible. Which is not helping her general state…she feels on the brink of tears, like she has for the better part of the day and so guilty, she could scream.

 

“And Kaitlyn got nothing,” Scott says, hammering on. “She’d thrown her whole future into a blender for me and I pulled back. I pulled out so far that she wouldn’t dare to switch teams, I pulled out so far she wouldn’t give up her lease at home. And you guys…you were starting to be _friends._ And you said goodbye to me. And like, I could see us, years from now, in the backyard over a barbecue with Kait’s and my children and aunt Tessa, making smores and not being with me. I imagined you with my kid on your lap and it wasn’t yours, my kids weren’t _your_ kids. And I couldn’t…”

 

“Baby,” Tessa mutters when his voice cracks to nothing and he looks at her helpless, trying to find the words that she already knows will give her the death blow right now.

“I couldn’t picture my future with anybody else but you,” he tells her, soft as a whisper and gazing into her very soul. “I don’t want a marriage, a family…I don’t want to raise children with anybody other than you. I love you so much and you’re the-“

 

"Scott! Stop, please,” she almost yells, shaking his hand off from her grip and staring at him wildly. It’s too much, she can’t listen to him say those things when he doesn’t _know._ “I’ve been keeping a secret, too. And I…I really don’t know how to tell you because it could mess everything up. I’m so scared that it’ll just ruin everything. And I…”

“Tess,” he says her name like a prayer, but one he doesn’t really understand and leans forward to catch her cheek in his palm, alarm in his eyes as they meet hers. “What is it?”

 

“I think I…,” she starts but can’t go on, not while she’s looking at him. “Scott, I fucked up.”

“What did you do?” He asks her. And now he sounds so worried that she can’t even look in his direction anymore and turns to the double glass doors opening up to the bright summer day outside, untouched by the pit opening inside. She has to tell him, she has to tell him right now.

 

“I got sick. A couple of times some weeks ago. In training, do you remember? And I, I forgot. I forgot that I got sick and I…we…,” she stammers. They’d had sex the day after and they after that. And she hadn’t paid attention, had been irresponsible. Had potentially ruined _everything._ “I’m…I’m pregnant.” 

“What?” She barely hears him over the terror in her blood, coursing through her veins and rushing past her ears because she is so scared. So scared of what he’ll say, what he’ll think. That he’ll hate her for screwing up their comeback and their lives because it’s such terrible timing and they only just figured themselves out and the Games…the Gold, all of their dreams…

 

“I took three tests. And I didn’t know how to tell you,” she splutters, feeling the dread in her chest with rambling, hoping to get through to him, to make him see that she is sorry, that she never meant to cause him pain or put yet another one of his Olympic Games in jeopardy because she just couldn’t take proper care of her body. “I don’t know what to do. I fucked up and…and we got the Olympics and this whole comeback and everybody putting so much work into this and you-”

“Can you just,” Scott holds up his hand, gesturing for her to _wait._ “I just need a minute.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

“Tessa!” He hisses and buries his face in his hands, leaving her to stare at JF, who looks shocked and like he, too needs to take a step back and process and Tessa hates herself. So much. She should not have kept this a secret for so long. She’s fucked up everything. And now what will she do?

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. From the bottom of her heart.

 

The minute Scott takes to gather himself is absolutely the longest of her life, longer than any time before a competition, longer than sitting in the Kiss and Cry at both her Olympics, waiting for the scores that would make or break her Gold dreams. Her eyes flitter from his cowering frame to the door, to the open kitchen, to JF who is looking out of the frame somewhere as if he was barely even there, back to Scott and she can scarcely breathe. She thinks of the tests hidden away in the back of the bathroom drawer, a burning shame. She can’t decide if she’s more ashamed of the fact that it happened or that she had kept it from Scott since Monday, that she’d sat on knowing this and hadn’t said anything. But how could she have? How does she live now if he’s angry at her? If everybody is angry at her for destroying everything they’ve worked so hard for for months?

 

“Okay,” Scott mutters into his hands and then stirs, sits up and reaches out for her to cup her cheek, speaking low and emphatically, a tornado raging at the back of his eyes she wishes she could translate. “Look. I know…what I’m supposed to say here, okay? And I want to. I want to…tell you that, that it’s your body and your decision and, let’s be clear, this is on both of us. This isn’t your fault, this isn’t anything you need to apologise for. And we worked so hard and I want…the Olympics and I know how badly _you_ want them and that that’s all factors and I know you’re not…I want to tell you that it’s _your_ choice and that I will support you no matter what but I, I don’t think…,” he pauses, takes his hand from her face to take both of hers in it and shakes his head while his cheeks flare up red like it’s a struggle to finish the sentence. “I don’t think that I _can_.” 

 

 _Wait, what?_ Does he really think that she doesn’t have her mind made up yet about what to do? Does he really think she has a choice to make?

 

“Even with all this work and even with loving you more than my own life, I want a say,” Scott tells her, almost pleadingly, as if she would have no regard whatsoever about how he feels about it at all. "I don’t want this to be just your decision and I know that’s horrible. But if it’s the Olympics or this baby, I want to have the b-”

“No. No, Scott, that isn’t even…that isn’t a question,” she says quickly, because how can he think that? How can that even cross his mind? “If I’m really pregnant, then we’re going to have a baby. I would never…there’s no reason…we’re young and we’re healthy and we got money. I don’t know if we’re ready...but we love each other. So if there’s a baby, there’s a baby.”

 

The way he looks at her is so full of tender warmth it could melt the Antarctica and for the first time in days, Tessa feels like she can breathe again. He’s not angry. He’s not angry, _thank God._

“Um, sorry guys, but do you want me to just…step out for a second?” Pipes JF from the tinny laptop speakers and Tessa and Scott are startled out of their connection for a second. JF is even easier to forget when he sits in a computer, apparently. 

“No,” she replies. “I think…I think we need some advice.”

“Well, first things first is that you have to go see your doctor and get the pregnancy confirmed,” JF nods to them, his brow furrowed. “Are you a hundred percent sure that you are?”

 

“The tests were positive,” Tessa answers, looking from their therapist to Scott and back. “But I wasn’t sure. I didn’t get my period on the first two days off the pill but then I did have some bleeding, so I thought I was just late and that was it but it wasn’t…you know, it wasn’t _enough_ and I felt queasy. So I took a test and another and another. But I haven’t been to the doctor’s yet. So I’m not a hundred percent sure.”

“I think that’s the most important step now. To get clarity,” JF says evenly, his tone level and calming. “Once we’re sure, we’ll see what we do next. And until then, I think I’ll leave you two alone to regroup for a second. Just…get an appointment and don’t worry. Everything is going to be just fine. Let me know what the doctor says...and please, just don’t freak out. Everything will be okay.” 

With that, JF bids his goodbye and Tessa puts down the lid of her laptop mechanically and just so she has something to do while Scott stares ahead as if his entire world has rearranged—which she guesses it has.

 

“Shit, man,” Scott says to her and the world at large as it seems. “This is a lot.” 

 

“I’m so sorry,” Tessa says before she can stop herself.

“Babe, I swear. Stop apologising,” he tells her over a squeeze of her hand. “I’m not mad at you.”

“But this is taking away our shot at-”

“At what?” He interrupts her, head snapping around to her, re-establishing their connection with vigour. “Another set of Gold medals? We already have those. Yeah, I want the Olympics and yeah, we’ve set this entire machine running and Dominick and the rest of B2Ten will probably kill us…but if we’re going to be parents then that’s…that’s _wonderful._ ”

 

“Yeah?” Tessa asks him, a flutter in her stomach that does not feel like a baby but would be kind of okay now if it was.

“Yes, God,” Scott almost laughs and rocks forward, closer to her and pulls her onto his lap. “You and me, T. Do you know what we did together, what we went through together? There’s nothing in the world we won’t be able to do. And if you’re having my child? That’s everything. Tess, that’s literally the best thing in the world. Screw the Olympics. Screw everything else. We’re gonna be a _family_. Our own family.” 

 

And if he says it like that…suddenly it’s not so scary anymore, it’s not the end of the world. Just the start of another. And if it costs them the Olympics, well, they will deal with the fallout. They will call up Marie and Patch and Dominick and the rest and apologise, deeply, for fucking with the two year plan and will have to sit down and suss out if they could still come back and do the Games in February 2018 with Tessa having given birth eight months before or of they draw out of competitions and simply won’t go. Tessa thinks it will probably be the latter. But if it’s so, then that’s not bad. Yes, it’s a bit crazy and a lot unexpected and the Olympics…well, the prospect of not going cuts like a knife. But a baby…a baby whose father is Scott Moir…that tops the Olympics on any day, she thinks. So the path, however scary and unprecedented for them, is _clear._

 

But yes, first things first, like JF said. Before they make all those calls that will change the trajectory of their life to come forever, she first needs to go see her doctor and wait for him to tell her that she really _is_ pregnant.

 

(She’s not. Well, technically, she _was_ , but not really.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think? This has my very own take on Scotland as you can see, which is pretty much my running meta theory about it all, am excited to hear what you think about it...but also yes...
> 
> This is obviously only fiction and as far as we all know not rooted in reality.  
> Always happy about your feedback and I know this is an icky subject for some but it will not go the way you think it will. I saw that there are a lot of people dealing with this subject matter in fic as well but I want to give a different perspective on the matter which i feel has not been discussed either in fics nor other narratives nor the media really, heavily coloured by my own experience with it, so I hope that you'll trust me to resolve this in the next chapter and stay tuned!
> 
> However if this is not your thing at all, I totally get it and thank you for reading until here :)


	13. ...Guilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNING: Early pregnancy loss and chemical pregnancy will be discussed in the chapter and ectopic pregnancies as well as abortions are mentioned! Steer clear if this is traumatic for you! WARNING FOR BOTH THE CHAPTER AND THE NOTES!!!**
> 
>  
> 
> ***
> 
> Hello! So, as promised, I poured my heart into this chapter and tried really hard to be respectful to the heavy subject matter and I heard the criticism about the triteness of the trope and the surprising turn of events for some of you. If you've decided to stick around, thank you so much and I hope from the bottom of my heart that I did the topic justice. This is also the most personal thing I have ever written.
> 
> Please see below for a more personal note on the matter. I did not want to clog up the beginning notes here but if you want to read the bottom notes first, you absolutely can.
> 
> Thank you for your trust and the continued support! It means the world!
> 
> Thank you as well for the three wonderful women who double and triple checked this chapter and gave me pointers on it, thank you for your patience and help, you know who you are! You can't begin to know how much you helped.
> 
> NOTE: I will post the links to my research for this chapter in the comments for further reading!

Tuesday 9:26 AM, September 13th 2016

 

Scott takes a sharp turn left, leaning back until he just barely keeps his balance, driving the edges of his blades into the ice with easy and trained precision, closes his eyes to the whoosh of wind hitting his face and _breathes._ There’s a whirlwind coursing through his body, touching down occasionally low in his stomach, the emotions coursing through him in sharp contrasts, ping-ponging between two opposing extremes and he knows that this is an issue, knows that they have to deal with it today or the rest of their training week will be a mess and with so little time to go to Autumn Classic, they simply can’t allow for that to happen. So when Marie-France calls him to the boards at the other end of the rink, he knows JF has arrived before he sees him. After a disastrous early morning practice with both Tessa and him distracted to all hells, they had conferred over a lift and decided it was time to fully loop in Marie into the situation and ask her to get JF, to sit down and talk about the latest developments.

 

Which were that Tessa had gone to the doctor’s yesterday and came back to him where he had waited in the car and shook her head at him, her face unreadable.

“I’m not pregnant,” she had said. “I was, but not really. Only for like a hot second.”

And she had shrugged and he had not understood, not at all. The rest of their day was spent in practice and Scott had thought he might breech the subject in therapy even if it wasn’t Thursday but then he remembered that JF had cancelled that session weeks ago, which meant that the only person he could talk to about it was Tessa. And so they had. Talked and talked and fought a little about him regretting to not have gone to the appointment with her and after that, they’d made love to get back to themselves and effectively hadn’t slept at all. So it’s really not surprising that their Tuesday morning performance is that of two partying, backwater-rink Juniors, instead of Gold-winning Olympians and two time World Champions.

 

Once he arrives back at the boards, Tessa smiles at him, that tiny smile she has when she’s letting him work through his raging emotions by himself, showing him that she’s there for him once he’s ready. She is, as always, even-keeled and consistent and as much as it unnerves him, it’s also his biggest touch point right now. She’s got him. No matter what happens, she has him covered. And that’s literally all he can ask right now.

 

He skates close, stopping just short of crashing into her, touches his hand to the small of her back and waves to JF with his free one. The look on his face tells Scott that Marie has brought him up to speed but the other man doesn’t say a word until Tessa and Scott have unlaced and carried their skates and water bottles up to Marie’s office and settled in, all four of them, on flat cushions on the floor, because there isn’t enough seating available.

 

Due to this, it’s a kind of _hippie_ atmosphere in the room, only aided by Marie brewing fresh tea and setting steaming cups in front of each of them but Scott thinks that vibe might help with the grim subject matter they have to discuss. Completely unsurprising, Marie-France had been _completely unsurprised_ about the news that Tessa and him had started a romantic relationship and her reaction to Tessa’s even newer news had been appropriate to the way Tessa had told it, which wasn’t overly dramatic but sympathetic and she’d hugged them both tight after all the same.

 

“We thought I was pregnant but I wasn’t and it’s a little bit much right now,” Tessa had told Marie and Scott had perked up, irritated, because in Tessa’s head, she’d apparently already rationalised the whole episode away to that simple sentence that was technically not wrong but also not a 100% right and it irked him that she was moving on so swiftly while he felt stuck in the mud.

 

Like she was getting ahead of him and not waiting for him to catch up. Because he is so different from her. He doesn’t, no, he _couldn’t_ analyse everything with the degree of removal Tessa used as a shield and a tool to make sense of things. He _felt_ everything, feels everything. He can’t step away and take sober stock of his emotions the way she can. For her, she’s already around the next corner, self-therapised and adjusted. For him, it isn’t that easy. He’s still waiting for someone to take his hand and guide him through this.

 

“So how do you feel?” Marie-France asks in her Quebecois’ accent thick with morning.

“I feel fine,” Tessa answers evenly and puts her cup of tea down. “And I feel a little bad about it, I guess.”

“And what about you, Scott?” Marie asks him, patting his knee where they sit cross-legged side by side.

"I…need a minute,” he answers truthfully. "I’m still wrapping my head around it.”

 

“We talked about it a lot yesterday,” Tessa informs the round. “His big thing is that we didn’t go to the doctor together.” Which is the reason they fought, yes, but not his _big thing_ about it obviously, so he makes a face.

“Because I should have been there for that,” he argues anyway, because the point still stands.

“But nobody knows about this, you said it yourself,” Tessa argues right back, a brief rehash of the unresolved conflict they’d left hanging in the air the night before, put on hold by life and sex and holding on to each other. “Hell, you hid in the actual _bushes_ in Bayfield on two separate occasions so no one would see you.”

 

“Not really the point,” Scott reminds her with a bit of an edge, hearing it and resolving to keep it out of his cadence the next time he’ll open his mouth. Mostly because Tessa flinches slightly at the tone as she was bound to and cowers a little in response and he hates it, feeling immediately guilty.

“I know. I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “But we did decide _together_ that I would go alone.”  

“I just didn’t expect _that_ to be the outcome,” Scott says, the way he has done repeatedly last night but no less sheepish for it.

“But I’m _fine_ , that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m…I don’t know how to put it so you’ll believe me,” Tessa sighs, looking at him from the side but he can’t quite meet her eye. “I’m not sad. I feel like I should be sad, maybe. But I’m really okay.” She turns away from him to address JF and Marie, because he has heard all of this before. “I want this comeback, I want this life, exactly as it is right now. And I would have changed and would have adapted and that would’ve been great too but I am happy that we still get to do this. That we still get to come back.”

“I am too,” Scott tells the others, sincerely, before turning to Tessa for the first time since they sat  down, making his own point once more in the light of day. “But it’s a lot, you know, for like three days I thought I was going to be a Dad.”

“And you will be,” Tessa says with certainty. "Just not right now.”

 

JF clears his throat, breaking their connection apart and making them flip their heads to him when he speaks: “Can you just explain to me, medically, what happened? So I’m on the same page.”

“Well, the doctor called it a Chemical Pregnancy,” Tessa replies easily, clinically, the way she had in the car the day before, after Scott had given voice to his puzzlement. “So basically there is a fertilised egg but it doesn’t _nest_ , so to speak. Like, at the moment you conceive, the egg and sperm begin to form a zygote. That zygote then grows through rapid cell division. And when that happens, sometimes stuff goes sideways. The result is that too many chromosomes are produced or not enough. Then those abnormalities lead to the pregnancy to not take. And she said that by the levels of pregnancy hormones in my blood, which were super low to begin with, she thinks it either lasted about like two weeks or was ectopic or both. It was a wonder that the tests picked it up in the first place, really.”

 

When Tessa had explained it to him, she’d gone a little more into detail, speaking calmly and taken her time, already working through it as she told him. That she had been irked by the bleeding which did not last as long as her normal period while off the pill but had been a little heavier than usual on that first day, that she had been confused by her lateness from the get go because usually, especially because of the hormones from birth control, she had them like clockwork. That originally, she didn’t even think she could be pregnant but took the test anyway to be sure. That the lines on the tests had been faint but there and enough to be relatively sure.

 

But that actually, by the time she’d taken the tests, she hadn’t been pregnant anymore and the tests had picked up the hormones still in her body anyway. That the doctor said had she waited just a week more, the lines wouldn’t even have showed up. That there was nothing she did wrong or right, that it was simply a thing that happened sometimes and that it wasn’t medically troubling, didn’t mean that she couldn’t have children in the future and that she’d given her pamphlets and a card from a self-help group and that any and all responses to the news were acceptable and normal and that she could call anytime if she had more questions. He had asked Tessa how she felt, before he even gave himself the chance to process and she’d stared ahead at the parking lot, taken a deep breath and shrugged, bobbing her head a little.

 

“Honestly?” And she only barely dared to glance at him. “A little...relieved, I think. Is that bad?”

“No,” he’d told her on reflex. But he hadn’t known for sure how he felt about it at first. Now, that he’d thought about it, he understands but contrary to how it gave her closure, it just made him more confused.

 

A day later, Tessa shrugs to the round in Marie-France’s office and picks her cup up, sipping once and then puts it down again. “The doctor said it likely happened because I’ve been on birth control before and after _the_ sex happened and so my hormones were all over the place and because I’m in intense physical training. A pregnancy would have been highly unlikely anyway and if I hadn’t taken the test, I wouldn’t even have known. If I wasn’t watching my body so much, I would’ve just…thought it was a regular, if _late_ , period. It’s actually really not such a big deal for me. Honestly, I keep waiting for some shoe to drop and to start being really sad but mostly, I just feel so _relieved._ And you know, this thing, it happens all the time and women who are not expecting to get pregnant actually don’t even realise that it did, like most of the time this goes completely unnoticed. So the real damage here is not even _physical_ at all, like to _me_. It’s more that we thought there might be a baby when there never was one, really.”

 

“Well, there _was_ one,” Scott says, peeved. This way of looking at it _hurts_ him and it’s a bit frustrating that she doesn’t seem to see that.

“There were a bunch of cells, Scott,” she snaps back. “There wasn’t even a fetus yet.”

“But it could have been,” he insists, frowning.

“Yes, it could have but it isn’t,” she says sharply. “But see that is just what I mean. I feel like I have to feel bad about this. But in my head…it’s like…my body did this. If it really was ectopic like the doctor thinks, it would’ve been so much worse, so I feel like maybe it was a blessing? Or fate? I don’t know. I want to skate and now I get to skate. And I’m happy that I get to do that. But I don’t feel like it’s okay for _me_ to feel okay now. I don’t think it’s okay for _you_.”

“That’s a little bit unfair?” Scott says thin-lipped. “I’m hurting, this _hurt_ me. And you’re all peachy and act like I’m being dramatic. I’m not dramatic.”

 

Tessa is about to say something but JF cuts her off with a wave of his hand, sitting up a little bit straighter and keeping his arms out, sensing an escalation somewhere in the distance the way everybody else probably can, too.

“What I want you to understand is that there are no right or wrong ways to feel about this. Everybody experiences things like this differently,” he says, looking between the two of them. “This might be deeply traumatic to some and a relief to others and some people feel grief and some might not feel anything and it might be a _million_ different things in between those extremes still. But you don’t have to pass judgement on the way you are responding to this. Not about yourselves and not about each other. This is crucial as we talk about this and I want you to understand that.”

 

Tessa and Scott both nod dutifully and check back in with each other, a silent apology passing and a promise to hear the other out and try to keep their own coloured reading out of reading each other, as far as that’s possible. “I’m sorry,” Tessa mouths to him, to double down on it.

 

“It happened to you, in your own special circumstances, with everything that makes you respond to it the way you do,” JF continues. "Like we said, no behaviour happens in a vacuum, you are feeling this way because of the total sum of your previous experiences, the cells in your body and the wiring of your brains. You don’t need to put a moral spotlight on yourself for this. You don’t need to concern yourself with the multitude of ways people could think or judge you for feeling the way you do. You get to just feel. And that’s alright. You get to process this. Each of you. However comes natural.”

 

“It’s just…so many people are trying and are devastated when it doesn’t work and I feel so bad for them, I _do_ ,” Tessa says, almost cutting in and when she speaks, she’s animated, so much so that Scott can tell this has been stewing inside her for a while now and it’s probably because of how he reacted to her the night before, and just now, a couple of moments ago. “With the way Scott and I deal with this, which is so different, I’m constantly aware of this vague expectation in me to have wanted this baby now. And I don’t mean that I wouldn’t have wanted it…but…ah, I feel I’m not making any sense.”

 

“It’s alright, sweetie,” Marie-France says gently and reaches over Scott’s lap to touch her leg and squeeze it comfortingly. Scott kind of wants to do the same but he doesn’t quite feel it right now, so he stays still.

“Look, it’s terrible and I know that. To go through this, even if it is this early,” Tessa continues, talking to him only. “If you notice and you know that you are technically pregnant and then you’re not, that’s so horrible. And if we had been trying, if we were at a different point in our lives right now, and this happened to us then, it would be terrible for me, too. But right now, it just feels like the most sensible thing that could have happened. Like, to me it feels like a _sign_. That this is the right thing for me to be doing. This is the right path. I am supposed to skate, I am supposed to go to the Olympics and to get that Gold medal. Here, this rink, that is where I’m supposed to be…say something?”

 

“Well, yeah. I think we’re supposed to be here, too,” Scott says, trying so hard to not sound petty  as he goes on even as he can tell by her eyebrow crawling up to her hairline that he is failing. “But there’s this pit in my stomach since yesterday and I’m having a bit of a harder time than _you_ to deal with it, it seems.”

“I would be careful about tone here, Scott,” JF says from the side. “Be mindful of that inflection, it sounds a little bit like cynicism.”

“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I’m just trying to say that I’m struggling a bit,” Scott tells him, careful to keep his voice level. “Because even if there wasn’t medically a real baby yet, I still thought there was going to be for a very long weekend. And it feels like a loss. And I would appreciate it if I felt that was being heard and acknowledged. Just because I’m not the woman here, doesn’t mean that I don’t have feelings.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Tessa says, like a shot. “That’s not what I want you to think. I’m hearing you, okay? I’m sorry that you feel this way. And you get to, it was yours too, I know that.”

“Which is also an absolutely valid and understandable,” JF agrees. “And the same goes for you that goes for Tessa, you don’t need to police the way you feel about this. You feel about it how you do and that’s that.”

“The hardest part for me is that I’m _still_ relieved, just like T,” Scott tells them. “I’m relieved that this is not happening right now but at the same time I am…not ‘sad’ per se, but like, _perplexed_ and yeah, okay, a little bit sad that it’s not when I’ve already kind of started planning for it and adjusted my mindset to it. I know it’s just been a weekend but…still.”

 

(And he had planned for it, if only hazy but he had seen it: The moving back to London, the finally getting the house renovated fully. The painting confetti on the walls of the room on the second floor —the second on the right— like Tessa had said ages ago she would paint a nursery because the pink or blue annoys her. The little socks and shoes and skates and hands reaching for him and before that, Tessa all round and complaining about it and his hands on her belly where their family grew. He had seen it…and that’s the point.)

 

“Scott, a weekend is long enough to get used to a thought,” JF says and nods understandingly. “And it is okay to feel both, loss and relief. It’s a confusing combination but it is possible.”

“Yeah, because I want this comeback,” Scott says. “I want the Olympics, I want to skate with Tess and be with her and it’s great that we’ll get to do this full-throttle and at a 150%.”

“But,” Tessa says and that’s really saying everything.

“Yes, _but_.” He nods to her. “I’ll be fine, I just need a day or two. And I’m happy that you’re okay, really, that’s the most important thing. I’m glad that you’re healthy and that it isn’t an ectopic pregnancy, because that would’ve fucking sucked.”

 

“Julie had that, right?” Tessa asks him, referencing an old friend from back in Ilderton and he flinches just at the memory.

“Yeah. And it was terrible. And I felt so horrible for her and I had nothing right to say, nothing that made sense. I didn’t know _what_ to say,” he gestures, forlornly, trying to point words into the air that he doesn’t have. “I mean, what do you say to that? To any of this…what do I say to you? What do I say to myself? And I know our situation is different because we’ll bounce back from this, we have a goal that we’re looking forward to, we’ll be fine…other people have it _so_ much worse but I…why? You know? Why does this stuff happen? Why does it hurt so many people and it’s gonna be okay for us and what can I do to make it better for those who suffer?”

 

“Can I say something?” Marie-France shifts where she sits and lets her eyes travel past everyone as they nod and then puts her empty tea cup to the side before she talks. “I’ve seen this happen a couple of times lately, but not quite in this way where you guys had no idea and it was an accident. But with people who have been trying forever and been really excited to have it work and then be so disappointed and _crushed_ so soon after, really.” Their coach tucks her hair behind her ears and glances past her desk out of the window overlooking the Gadbois park, the serene green calm outside at odds with the high-strung tension in their round inside.

 

“You’re totally right, it’s daunting to know what to say,” Marie continues, pondering her words carefully. “And the answer is there isn’t some patented right thing to do. All you can do is try to understand. How devastating it is, how you’ve made plans for a future that now won’t come to pass and that you have to get up and try it all over again. And that sucks. The one thing I only ever know to do is to ask people what they need. You know, some people need to talk for hours, some people need to research every last little medical fact, some people need laughter or distraction. Grief is not processed the same from any two people. Some make it out okay after a while and some carry that loss with them forever.”

 

“And I struggle with that,” Tessa chimes in. “I feel like…I am disrespecting their experience with mine. Like, I feel bad that others suffer so gravely and I am _fine_ . I feel like I’m not being appreciative of the fact that I got pregnant in the first place and then I feel bad for the way that I don’t even think about it as a _pregnancy_ , really.” Tess looks like she’s fully aware of the fact that she is repeating herself, talking in circles, the way they had most of last night, too. “And it’s harder for Scott because he saw it as one but I… _don’t_. Like, I look at him and I think he’s waiting for me to break down eventually but that’s just not how I feel.”

“I’m just trying to be there for you,” Scott mutters, wondering if he should feel bad for maybe having smothered her—but then again, he’d been looking for support just as much as he’d wanted to offer it and he thinks that’s fair.

 

“I know and I _love_ you for it…but _nothing_ happened, not the way I see it,” she re-iterates carefully,  but still brash in her way, a little less sensible about it than he wishes she were, caught up in her own view of the world right now. 

"It’s just…I imagined that kid, you know," he tells her. "It’s like I could see that future for a moment and it was so full of possibilities that are now gone.”

“But, Babe, they’re not,” Tessa almost whispers and finally takes his hand from where it lies on his lap. “I mean, look how quickly that worked. I was off the pill two days and if I wasn’t in training, who knows, it might’ve stuck. We’ll be fine trying again. Who’s to say that we can’t come back from Korea and do just that?”

 

“I don’t even _want_ children right now,” Scott hears himself say and finds that it’s true and it’s funny that he had not even thought about this before. The question if he was ready really had been a non-issue before, because the second he’d thought that there was going to be a child, he’d accepted the responsibility and it hadn’t mattered how or if at all ready he felt. Now that he is free to ponder the possibility freely, again, he listens into himself and finds that certainty, clear as day; he’s not ready for kids yet. “Honestly, I don’t. Not for a few years at least. I just barely got myself figured out, I don’t know that I want to take care of a full human now when I barely know how to care of me.” (And _yet_ …) “But we would have made it work.”

 

“We would have,” Tessa agrees and draws a soft pattern into the soft skin of his palm, tracing his lifeline with her index finger lightly. “Still, I don’t want children right now either. So it’s all maybe for the best.”

“I know. But that feels weird,” he muses and closes his fingers around hers, looking at them as they interlock automatically, as if they’d always been made to slot together. “It feels weird that  there not being a baby is better for us at the moment.”

 

"All valid emotions,” JF attests them.

“So how do we deal with it?” Scott asks sincerely, because the pit in his belly is still very much there, rumbling softly like dark moors.

“First of all, like I said, don’t judge how you’re responding to this but do be mindful about it. And try to figure out what you need,” JF explains and then points at him: "Scott, if you say you’re grieving this as a loss, you might want to think about seeing a specialist on this matter or let me know so I can familiarise myself a bit more with grieving processes and we can work through it. And among the two of you, try not to judge these responses either. I’m seeing a stark contrast in the way you are reacting to the matter and there is potential for unnecessary conflict. Especially if you don’t talk about this difference and don’t accept it in each other.”

 

“Is it really bad for you?” Tessa asks him, disentangling their hands to rub his arm, making an effort finally to appreciate his struggle beside her own firm resolving of the issue.

“It’s…confusing, because I feel two very different things at the same time,” he tells her. “You?”

“For me, it’s like you mentioned, this feels more like a scare to me,” she says, her face twisted into what looks like half an apology. “And I’m so used to those.”

“What?” And this doesn’t compute immediately. Tessa is _used_ to having pregnancy scares? _Is that what she’s saying?_

 

“No, I mean, not from myself, at least not crazy often but like…at Arctic Edge?” Tessa says, as if she can’t believe that this caught him off guard. “For ten years…eventually everybody was there at one point.”

“Are you serious?” He asks, voice dipping upwards with disbelief, he’d had _no_ idea.

“Of course,” Tessa almost laughs. “All the girls were freaking out at one point or another. And there’ve been…I don’t know, too many underhand abortions to count. Not just in Canton but like, across the board. You can’t have a baby and skate competitively, not when you’re just starting out and try to make a name for yourself. That’s it for you, you’re out…and the coaches, seriously, the amount of pregnancy tests Marina made me take was downright _comical._ At a certain point I thought she just passed me them to let me know I was getting fat. But if I _had_ been pregnant…she’d have marched me to the clinic herself.”

 

(There’s a tone to the way she says this that makes it sound like Tessa knows for a fact that Marina would have done this, _has_ done this, so certainly as if she was speaking from first-hand knowledge and Scott wonders who it was, who it could have been among all the kids at Canton but can’t even land on any educated guess…because he truly hadn’t known about this.)

 

“What?” Scott is still slow to process and he looks from Tessa to Marie to JF back to Marie. Because she’s been there longer, she’s bound to know if what Tessa says is true. “Is that a thing?”

“Mais oui, it’s not really acknowledged though,” she replies evenly. “People don’t like to talk about it. But it happens. Unplanned pregnancies and amateur careers don’t work together. It’s just as worse in other disciplines. But nobody talks about abortions in sport, it’s a…non-topic, c’est tabou, if you like.”

“That’s true. I saw this at Cirque as well, and among the couple of runners I know…it happens a lot,” JF agrees. “‘Cause if a guy gets someone pregnant that’s just what it is but if a girl in any elite sport gets pregnant, that’s the season for her, at least. And often it’s career-ending at the level they’re at. It’s over for them…just like that.” He snaps his finger and the sound echoes back from the dry wall.

 

Scott tries to reframe his formative years, tries to imagine Tessa and Meryl and Tanith and Kaitlyn and Meaghan running around scared of being pregnant, scared of having ruined their careers, scared of having to get an abortion, unable to talk to anybody, unable to confide in anyone. And it kills him. It kills him for one, that he hadn’t known and two, that there wasn’t a support system in place for young athletes, for young girls especially, going through all of that while trying to bring their best game to the table. There should be support for that, there shouldn’t be secrecy, there shouldn’t be a _tabou_ , like Marie said, on reproductive rights. There should be education and understanding and safe spaces. And no young female figure skater or any young female athlete should ever have to be afraid to confide in someone about their health in any way. There should be something done about this in the future of the sport. And yeah, beneath all that, there’s one other big mystery, isn’t there?

 

“So when there’s a scare and you weren’t, you know, _completely fucked_ …that was always a happy occasion,” Tessa says. “People went to get shots after a negative test and got hammered in celebration because _phew, what a bullet dodged._ That’s the kind of response that I’m used to.”

"Did you ever have that?” Scott asks the burning question that has started slowly taking over his brain. “A scare like that, I mean?”

 

“During Carmen, when you’d moved on to Cassandra,” Tessa shrugs, as if that’s nothing, as if that’s not an information, he maybe should have been privy to before. “I thought I’d been pregnant then, for like three days. Three very, very long days…And you know, I can’t even tell you what I would’ve done then, if I even would have told you if I had been. God knows Marina didn’t care anymore but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I _wanted_ those Olympics, I wanted to show her and like…I sat in front of that test and watched for the lines to appear and I thought…’If I’m pregnant, I’m getting an abortion’. And I think I would have. But I was so glad that I didn’t _have_ to. Just like I’m so glad now that I don’t have to let go of the Olympics.”

 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Back then?” He asks her, taking her hand and bringing it over to press it against his chest so she has to rock over closer to him to follow the movement. “And now, in the beginning, actually.”

“I didn’t want to bother you with it,” she says like it’s the most obvious answer.

“Tess, you’re not _bothering_ me with anything, let alone stuff like this!” He insists hotly. “This is important.”

“Yeah, but it wasn't.. _._ I wasn't sure _._  Not during Carmen and not right now until I told you. Pregnancy scares happen all the time, it’s so…normal, you even get that when you haven’t had sex in seven months…like, immaculate conception is never really out of the question,” she jokes. “See, we’re having this huge thing now that is taking away from our training, time and focus and you’re grieving and I feel like a morally rotten person and none of this would be happening if I’d just waited to go to the doctor. You would never have needed to know.”

 

“Is that what you think? That I would’ve been better off?” He challenges, leaning into her. “And we would’ve been better off with you keeping that secret?”

“Babe, you’re hurting right now. You feel like you’ve lost a child,” she murmurs softly, regretful, and traces his jaw with the slightly trembling fingers of her free hand. “That’s the worst thing in the world. And _I_ did that to you.”

“I don’t need you to coddle me,” Scott tells her emphatically, trying to burn his words into the folds of her brain, piercing them through her eyes. “This is a _partnership_ , we handle these things together. This is not just on you. Okay? Then like now, we’re in this _together._ No matter what it is, I want you to tell me. If you’re sad or if something has happened to you, even if it makes _me_ sad, too. I want to be there for you. I _need_ to be there for you.”

 

“Guys, let me just say, that you’re communicating very well right now. I’m proud of you,” JF interjects. “But I want to get in here really quick because…I can see a theme emerging, which I’ve seen pop up time and time again in the time we’ve known each other and that’s _guilt._ ” He let’s that hang in the air between them for a moment for effect and Scott sees Marie-France nod empathetically beside their mental prep coach.

 

“You two have the tendency to beat yourself up harder about what you perceive as faults than most people I’ve met, even the top level athletes I work with,” JF goes on. “That starts with misstepping during a program and ends with big, personal things like these. And you see there is this divide between appropriate guilt, when you have really hurt someone or done something shitty and then there is the kind of guilt that is irrational because it serves no purpose.” (Another pause, so they all have a chance to follow.)

 

“If we were to take Tessa and her guilt in this regarding you, Scott,” JF nods to him. “There is appropriate guilt, there in that juxtaposition between ‘I should have told him sooner’ and ‘I shouldn’t have told him at all’ and very much inappropriate guilt where it’s ‘I got pregnant and now I am not and this is hurting him’ and ‘I feel fine with this and he doesn’t’. The biological reason for guilt is to make you re-examine your behaviour and make changes to it if needed. It’s your amygdala registering disgust at your own behaviour or the faults you made as you perceive them. And so pulling on that thread, this is where you’ll find your lessons in the matter. What are the behaviours you showed and where do those need to change maybe?”

 

JF looks like he wants to maybe get a blackboard out, but instead he just leans forward to have his hands free to roam and jab and cut at the air the way he does when he gets animated: “She feels guilty about not being honest with you and at the same time being honest with you because the truth subsequently hurt you. To mitigate that, there needs to be a conversation, which you were having. And Scott told you, Tessa, that he would like you to be honest with him, even if it might hurt. So there is the first lesson. And then the other source of guilt is the getting pregnant and following loss of that pregnancy. You could argue that the lesson here is to monitor your birth control better but things like these happen. It _happens_ , even with as meticulous and monitored as you are. And, might I add that maybe it’s time you actually told your whole team about the change in your relationship so we can also all be mindful about this avenue of things. Because nobody but the three of us and maybe four of us knew about it at the time.”

 

(He does have a point there, doesn’t he?)

 

“But back to the topic at hand: feeling guilty about the situation itself is not helpful,” JF barges on. “This has happened _to_ you. Situations in life and your responses to them are _as is_ , neither of you chose to feel the way about it that you do, you just do. That’s the thing about feelings. So it doesn’t do anybody any good to dwell on _having them_ a certain way. The key is to accept them, work through them and move on.”

 

“What if I can’t move on?” Scott asks.

“From what, in particular?” JF asks back.

“From that loss,” he offers.

“Do you feel like you can’t?” JF inquires.

“No, not really,” he replies. “But I’m _afraid_ that I might not. That that might happen.”

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” JF smiles a little, gently, patiently, like a sweet, caring uncle. “For now, be gentle with yourself, Scott.”

“To me it’s just so weird to feel sad and happy about the same thing at the same time,” he says, giving voice once again to the thing that has his body on the edge of nervous shivers at any given moment. “I don’t know what I should feel of the two.”

 

“There’s no answer to that,” JF tells him over a shrug. “Feeling two conflicting emotions about the same thing is universal and happens to everybody. The only issue there is that sometimes they cancel each other out in a way that puts you in a sort of stasis, where you can’t move on because you’re constantly flip-flopping between one or the other. So eventually, if you stay alert and keep listening to yourself, one of the two feelings will emerge as the predominant one and then you can deal with it accordingly and move forward. But that’s not a competition. You don’t have to know right now which of the two it is and there’s certainly not a right or a wrong way to feel. Just acceptance. Feel the feelings, experience them, that’s the only way you’ll process. And examine if any guilt you feel in regards to them is warranted and appropriate.”

 

“I’m very proud of you, both of you. You’re handling this really well,” Marie throws in, squeezing both their hands where they’ve settled interlocked on Scott’s knee. “You know guys, let’s not forget that you’re still so young. You’re twenty-six and twenty-eight, you’re just _babies_ . And this is a lot. It’s a lot to go through, not just the situation but the circumstances in which it happened. You’re doing this comeback and you’re killing it and you have a _shot._ If we continue on like this, that Gold is yours, we all know it. And you’re working on your relationship. You’re figuring that out on top of all of this and from what I see you’re doing beautifully with it, too. You’re doing your best, both of you. And other people experience other things differently from you. But it’s like I said about the other couples and their styles last week, that’s _their_ styles. This is _yours_. That’s _their_ lives, this is _yours_. You have to live it.”

 

Tessa nudges him with her shoulder, mostly to move closer to Marie-France and gleam at her appreciatively, gratefully and lighter, somehow.

 

“Don’t look left and right so much. The same way that nobody else owes you an apology for the way they respond to things in their hearts, you don’t owe that to anybody either,” Marie says intently, looking back and forth between the two of them. “There’s no expectations, not here, not from us. It’s okay to feel how you feel. All your emotions are valid. I can only agree with JF here. And you’re really, really doing so good. It’s okay to forgive yourselves. For that guilt that you feel. And to allow yourself to feel loss or not feel loss.”

 

“And to feel… _gain_?” Tessa asks, head low as if she’s admitting to murder.

“That too. There are no rules here,” Marie says and JF picks up the thread: “All you have to do is let your authentic feelings pass and work through you. Everything else is okay just the way it is.”

“I just don’t want this to taint the Olympics for you,” Tessa says now, under her breath as she’s leaving in. “And I’m so sorry if I did that.”

"You didn’t,” Scott shoots back, because that’s absurd, he’s so excited about the Olympics, he’s ready to bursting none of this was her fault anyway. “I mean, that’s what is so bizarre. I’m so happy we get to go on. I’m ecstatic. I wanna get back on the ice and work on those programs and I’m so excited for Autumn Classic, I wanna go _right now._ I’m having so much fun here, I’m having the _best_ time. And everything with us, it’s just right. It’s just exactly how I think it should be. I don’t want anything to change.”

"It won’t,” Tessa promises. “Plus I now know another thing I hadn’t before,” Tessa says to Scott, getting closer still and touching her forehead against his jaw. “Once this is over, one day, I want that with you. I want to be a family. And I want nobody else to go on that journey with me. Nobody else to be the father of my children.”

“Same,” Scott murmurs, turning his head to kiss her head softly.

 

And there’s a sense of calm settling into his bones gently as a whisper and he realises as it washes over him, that it had started slowly spreading before, that it helped talking about it. That he was getting closer to clarity and processing with every syllable. That this whole thing, the therapy and the listening, to himself and to others, it helped. It changed his entire outlook, his ability to withstand pressure, adversity, heartbreak. He was growing and learning and he was going to be okay. And that’s wonderful.

 

That’s more than he would ever have thought possible growing up. So many people have this weird mindset about therapy, think like something is wrong with them when they go or that it’s too expensive but this right here, times like these go to prove that mental health care is like a good mattress, you can’t cheap out on that. They’ve arguably been through something supremely awful over the course of the last weekend, something in its core terrible enough to scar and traumatise people in ways that brings tears to his eyes and he feels so bottomlessly sorry for, his compassion threatens to burst his skull and leave only helplessness in the face of how gruesome the world can be and how unfair and shitty and wrong.

 

But he has _this_ , he’s got this great team and this amazing psychologist and Marie-France and Tessa who listen and work with him, _for_ him and give him the space to come to terms with his very many feelings. And it’s better now. It’s manageable. It still sucks, yes, it’s still confusing, the duplicity and opposing nature of his emotions, but he has words for it now. He can describe what he feels and because he can, people can understand him. People can help. He can _ask_ for help, if he wants it, too. And he’s so much better for it, so much more positive looking ahead. And he breathes out long and languid, letting hope flood his lungs and accepting the sadness into his heart as well as the excitement of things to come.

 

It’s alright. It’s okay. He’ll be fine and he gets to _feel._ All of it. And it’s right this way.

“Do you wanna skate?” Tessa finally whispers when his lips still rest loose against her skin.

“Yes,” he whispers back, grateful, because _yes, please God_ , let him skate.

 

“I love you, Tessa,” he says, a run-through of Latch later and she holds him tight on the ice, running her hands through the hair he’s slowly growing out for her.

“I love you too,” she echoes and holds him tighter.

 

They’ll be fine.

 

(It’ll be another long night, still. The hazily-formed images of the child that wouldn’t be coming back to him with the echoes of starlight through the window and he will mourn the loss, tell Tessa in as many words as he has that he’s saying goodbye to a future they might’ve had and she will hold and hold him, cheek to cheek and heart to heart, and cry because he does and she’ll be there with him. With all her strength and all her calm and her analytical mind, pulling him back from the edge of misery with a kiss and a smile and a promise that she’ll be there for him for however long he needs and that he never has to be afraid to feel exactly _everything_ it is he feels. That it’s—that _he_ is, save with her.

 

And then he’ll sleep, once her words have made him light again and when she will ask him in the morning how he feels, he’ll tell her: “I’m alright.” And it will be the truth.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned in the comments on last chapter that I am aiming to take a different approach to this topic than what we usually see and that it's very much coloured by my own experience. Which is basically what Tessa goes through in this chapter. And this will be personal now and a bit TMI, just to have said it -- also it deals with the same subject matter as the chapter so the 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING (Early pregnancy loss and chemical pregnancy will be discussed in the chapter and ectopic pregnancies as well as abortions are mentioned!)
> 
> STILL APPLIES!
> 
> A good six years ago, I had a situation in which I was several weeks late after a ONS and took a test that came out with one faint line for positive and it cracked my world wide open. I was terrified. I was barely into my twenties, a veritably poor student and still felt very much like a kid myself. I had neither the financial resources nor the emotional maturity to take care of a child, plus I was not in a relationship with the guy who would've been the father, neither did I want to be. I took another test with barely to no line for pregnant but that did not give me any peace of mind. I had the worst and longest night of my life after that, crying and freaking out and with no one to really talk to because I was so ashamed. I had been careful or so I thought but these things happen, I still felt like a failure, like a disappointment, like a bad person for being so reckless. I confided in one friend who was sweet and supportive and told me to go make an appointment at the gynaecologist. I never did, I was too afraid to, positively petrified. I couldn't even pick up the phone. I never even told my mother.
> 
> I took a hot bath the next day because I read that this helps when you're waiting for your period and went to bed, didn't sleep again and was freaking out still, trying to picture my life going forward if the period wouldn't come, if I'd take another test and it would be positive again. I didn't know what to do. I find it hard even now to talk about abortion, even if I am absolutely pro-choice but that doesn't mean that when I was in the situation where I felt like I was going to make it, I liked the choices. It felt like a lose/lose.
> 
> In the morning, I finally got my period (or whatever it was...like I said, I never had the guts to go to the doctor to be sure, I went out with my friend who I'd had confided in that night and vowed to put it behind me and honestly, before today writing this chapter, I tried hard not to think about it ever). Writing this chapter was therapeutic for me, deeply so, because for the first time I voiced my own quarrels with myself, the guilt I feel for the way I felt back then. For very much not wanting to be pregnant and not wanting to have to make a choice regarding a pregnancy at this stage of my life when I was absolutely and entirely not ready to have a child.
> 
> I went through the same thought process that Tessa does here: I was ashamed of being relieved, ashamed of being happy to not be pregnant (and, as I still believe a little bit although, like I said, I never made sure, not pregnant _anymore_), I was ashamed of myself being grateful to the universe while there were women who were struggling with wanting a baby and not having one. I felt like I squandered with life, with my own and a potential new one and that I was diminishing the hurt others felt about something terrible that I had wished more than anything would happen to me. And I felt guilty about feeling that way too, because I felt like I was being over-dramatic and putting my issues about the far greater suffering of others.
> 
> So writing this and working through it was important to me, the same way it was important to me to look at it from all angles and to handle it with care and love and from a point of healing, not suffering. I really tried to have that all infuse this chapter, to not be cruel or gratuitous or insensible to the many horrible things women and couples go through when they lose a pregnancy - but also to be kind to myself and my own experience and practice forgiveness and acceptance of my own feelings.
> 
> All that is to say...this comes from a part that I want and need to believe is good inside me. And if I still hurt anybody with this or the mention of it in my last chapter, then I want to say that I am deeply sorry and that was never my intention. For me, this was a healing experience and I wish that it might have been for you too.
> 
> Lastly, I want to thank you for reading, if you read this far, but also kindly ask you to not share my story beyond the borders of this site because it is deeply personal and I have not disclosed it anywhere else. Again, thank you so much and any and all of your thoughts so far, on this entire journey but these last two chapters in particular do really mean the world to me, the good and the bad and I hope you can forgive me if I have hurt you. 
> 
> Thank you so much,  
> \- E


	14. ...Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! After the last two heavy chapters, I'm happy to bring back some levity and would like to thank all of you who commented and shared in the comments on the last chapter and tell you once again how deeply grateful and touched I was by every last one!
> 
> Thank you for your trust and your encouragement. And now I hope you'll enjoy this next chapter!
> 
> A big shout out and love goes out to tumblr user tisaqueen who pre-checked this chapter for me and gave me feedback, thank you, you are stellar!

**** Thursday 4:26 PM, September 22nd 2016

 

They got sent home. For the second time in their partnership counselling with JF, he’s sent them home. Mostly because they’d reached a breakthrough within the first five minutes of the session that JF considered fruitful enough to make up for the rest of the allotted time for it. And also because he wanted them to get going on the plan they’d made immediately, saying that putting it off would do nobody any good.

 

As Tessa rehashes the session in her head when Scott drives them back to their apartment building from JF’s office in Laval, she goes through the brief conversation again, the words spoken flying by like a script. Starting with JF, on his couch, studying them, probably pondering whether or not to ask them about how they fared in the week prior after all that had happened over the weekend before last.

“How are you feeling?” He’d asked. Which was the option to give them the choice if they wanted to talk about it or not.

“Better,” Scott said. “I’ve processed, I think. Come to terms with it.”

“We helped each other,” Tessa elaborated. “And I think we understand each other better now.”

 

And this was also true. It had taken the better part of the week to work through their different responses to what had happened and not for the first time the money B2Ten put into their therapy was worth its value tenfold. They worked through their experience the way they worked through programs. Starting slow, with pieces here and there, tackled them one by one and then put everything together, dissected it, tried again, failed, failed again but better and better until everything had been said three times at least, had turned into a process, a mantra and lastly, peaked at closure. And while Tessa had no illusions that Scott or her wouldn't at certain points come back to the experience and remember what it was like, she also began to understand what exactly they had gained from the experience.

 

Which was _trust_. And that was saying a lot because before, they already trusted each other, had already worked so hard at a foundation that allowed them to put both each others hearts and each others health into the other person’s hands. But now it was this all-encompassing huge, pervasive comfort and peace that had slotted into her sense of self like a basement under a home, beneath all else. Scott and her, if there had ever been a doubt in the first place, they were _forever._ No matter what would happen. If they would lose the Gold, break all their limbs two days before the Olympics, even if they got into the biggest fight ever, even if in ten years they would find that their romantic passion dwindled back down to friendship and they’d decide to stop being a romantic couple, no matter what other tragedy might befall them —because such was life and you never knew what was going to happen to you— they would go through it together.

 

JF had asked her in one session if she trusted Scott with the full truth and her answer had been a resounding no. To think this now feels like blasphemy almost, because _of course_ she would. She can and she will. He would always be there, Scott, with all his shadows and all his shining, blinding light, will always be there for her, no matter what. In the years coming, like in all the years before, people will make a great deal out of their bond, their connection, their relationship and will be puzzled and aching to put a label on it, have this great need for Tessa and Scott to define it. 

 

They will try to and say things like “what a funny little relationship we have, it’s better than it was, five years ago, ten years ago” and “this bond that we share is, to us, the No. 1 priority” and “it’s better than anything else we could really imagine. I wish I had a better way to explain it or some kind of label to put on it but we don’t”. And that’s true. Because it goes so much deeper than everything else, bigger than romance, bigger than friendship, bigger than anything else she has ever experienced.

She only knows that it’s _this_ , this huge, big, larger-than-life thing and it’s the cornerstone of her entire life. Just the fact that she gets to be alive at the same time as him, live in the same world, it’s too much. It’s the absolute best thing. And nothing will ever steal that away from her, nothing will ever come between that ever again, no leg pain, no miscommunication, no tragedy, no other people. They’ll make it through anything. And that’s the takeaway of that last horrible week as well as the last wonderful, terrifying, wild, rewarding and tumultuous nineteen years with him. And honestly, what more can she ever ask of life?

 

In the car on the way home, Tessa glances over to Scott, eyes trained on the road and humming along to the radio and smiles, recalling the rest of their third-of-a-session with JF earlier. The thing that had set them onto this new leg of their journey together.

 

“That sounds great,” JF had commented on their brief summary of their less than brief recent developments, leaving them the freedom to not delve into it further. He only added this: “I just want you to know that whenever this might rear its head again, you can always talk to me, call me whenever. I am here for you guys, okay?"

“Thank you, we appreciate it,” Scott nodded and then JF mirrored him, waited a second and waltzed over to a different topic, smooth like a dancer.

“Good, because I feel like we could use this time we have today to probe into something else that emerged last week that we haven’t talked about yet,” he said. “You’ve mentioned —and I made a note about that— that Scott’s ‘big thing’ had been the fact that he wasn’t with you for the doctor’s appointment because you decided that it wouldn’t be good for you to be seen together and that he's been literally hiding in the bushes while you were on vacation, yeah?” 

 

Tessa nodded her affirmation to JF, who wasted not a second to ask: “There’s tension about this. Tell me about it.”

“Well, we’re not sure how to handle this,” Scott told him. “We don’t…we don’t want to make this public knowledge quite yet but it’s a strain, eh? Especially with stuff like last week when we can’t tell anybody and don’t have the support from our families.”

“So you really haven’t told them yet?” JF asks to clarify.

“No,” Tessa replied and then turned to her partner. “There wasn’t a good time, really, when we saw them over Labour Day, right?” 

“Not really,” he said to her. “I felt like we were stalling a little, maybe?”

“What’s holding you back?” JF checked. 

 

“Honestly, I don’t even know,” Tessa admitted. “It just…feels a little weird. We never really told our parents about anything that happened between us, like, intimately. Because there was this whole thing about us growing up so close and-”

“Everybody always telling me to look out for her and to not get stupid with her,” Scott finished for her.

“And how we’ve always swore it wasn’t like that between us,” she added.

“So many times,” Scott sighed. “I _never_ told my parents. Dan, Charlie and Chiddy know that we slept together, like, back in the days.”

“Yeah, Jordan knows that, too,” Tessa said.

“But nobody else,” Scott affirmed, sounding boundlessly sure.

 

“Well, Marina knew,” Tessa said dryly. Because, _honestly._

“What?” And Scott had sounded so legitimately shocked, Tessa had to snort. Was he serious?!

“Oh come on, Scott,” she laughed. “She knew after the _first time_. You were subtle like a sledgehammer.”

“She _knew_?”

“She did, _both_ times. I think at the start of Carmen the whole of Arctic Edge knew. There were rumours about us. Because again…subtle like a sledgehammer.” 

“I had no idea!” Scott bellowed and it figured. 

 

For as perceptive as he is, he’d sure always had this particular blind spot to the way him and her interacted, to how weird they must’ve seemed to others at points, often unable to piece together why this or that girlfriend of his absolutely hated Tessa’s guts and stormed out of stands at competitions or left family functions in tears when Tessa was in attendance as well and Scott had thoughtlessly slipped into the bubble with her and effectively cut his date out of, basically, existence. He was just so used to it, he never stopped to question anything. Tessa, being the over-thinker that she is, always had. She just didn’t care very often, too possessive over him to mind hurting some girlfriend’s feelings, which was admittedly one of her less admirable qualities. 

 

“Yeah well, that was a pain to explain to my Mom back then,” she enlightened him, long overdue probably. “And _yours_ by the way, because she did ask me, too. Told them that it was all gossip and we never went there. Lying through my teeth.” She turned back to JF. “I guess that’s part of it now. I feel like if we tell them now, it’s gonna come out that we lied all this time. That’s…uncomfortable.”

“So you _were_ holding back on Labour Day,” Scott muttered as if a lightbulb had just come on inside him. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“It didn’t come up,” she told him. “And then I was busy with other things, you know?”

 

He’d flinched, remembering the dark week that came after. He knew.

“Does Jordan know?” He asked instead of acknowledging her allusion any further. “About right now?” 

“No, I didn’t tell her,” Tessa replied. “I told nobody. You?”

“Nobody.” Which was bullshit and she’d known it.

“Babe, I know you told Patri-”

“No, I didn’t,” he cut in, entirely too quickly to be even an ounce believable. 

“Last time we met, he couldn’t even look me in the eye, Scott,” she challenged. “He had _crazy face_. You know he can’t lie for shit, he’s almost worse than you!”

He said nothing, which said _everything._

“Oh my God, I _knew_ it!” She hissed but more amused than anything else.

 

“Come on, I had to tell _someone_!” Scott whined defensively. “And I was annoying him since…before we moved here, about you and us and the whole thing. Are you mad?”

“No,” she laughed, fondly, letting him off the hook. “‘Cause Chiddy can keep a secret.”

“Oh yeah, he’ll take that to his grave if we asked him to.” And this is true, if Patrick Chan is one thing and nothing else, it’s loyal. Sometimes to a fault.

“I don’t think he needs to keep it _that_ long,” Tessa said, imagining poor Chiddy having to sit on this big secret for years, probably going a little bit mad pretending not to know a thing. Maybe they should at least get some other people into it as well, so that it wouldn’t remain solely on their friend’s firm shoulders. “But I think we should…brave the storm and tell our families. I think it’s time.” 

 

“I’d advise this,” JF had piped from across from them. “In the spirit of reducing distractions, I would say share this with anybody who you trust to keep it private. If you don’t want it to be out to the public, keeping that a secret will be tough enough.”

“What do you mean?” She’d asked, not sure if she understood what he meant.

“ _Subtle like a sledgehammer?_ ” JF repeated. And _touché._

 

They laughed then, all three of them. JF proud of his joke and Tessa and Scott sheepish for getting called out. But he was right, obviously. Tessa, without seeing them from an outside perspective obviously, had a pretty good idea what they looked like since their dynamic had changed to _this_. The way they acted in training, the gazing and the whispering. The way Scott ran his hands over her arms when skating around and back at the boards, thoughtlessly affectionate and tactile, when he was talking to Marie or Patch or Romain, the way he _Scott_ -ed their choreographies and put his lips on any available part of her and also his _tongue._ Damn that Prince-Medley! But also _don’t_ damn it, it was her favourite part of the training day when he dipped her over and alternatively assaulted that spot where her chest met her shoulders with kisses or actually licked a firm strip up her skin while he could—and it didn’t matter to him at all if she wore a shirt, a sweater or her costume. 

 

One time after that dip and they’d cut before a lift, he plucked a rather large piece of lint from his mouth and Tessa had laughed so hard she’d peed a little. Also that shoulderless halter top he _loved_ was her bargaining chip in the endless argument about whether or not she would get to wear pants for that number, which for some reason, Scott kept saying was a terrible idea. She also knew that there were whispers at Gadbois about how Scott and her never socialised, declined almost all invitations to get lunch together or meet up at night. They kept citing their age and hard work catching up to the ‘deep field of ice dance’ for packing up quickly at the end of each day and heading home like Mr. and Mrs. Flash but she had her doubts if everybody truly believed that. So yeah, JF definitely had a point; keeping the exact nature of their love for each other a secret from the general public would be a task and a half.

 

“Fair point", she had conceded, thusly.

“Well, then. Don’t let me keep you,” JF grinned, looking pleased with himself.

“What?” Tessa and Scott said on the same breath.

“I’m postponing the session,” JF had told them. “Come on, you got homework. Go and tell your parents.” 

 

And this is how they end up on Tessa’s couch with a minute to spare to their Skype-Date with their parents: Alma and Joe and Kate, who Tessa had asked to drive over to Scott’s parents house in Ilderton because they wanted to make sure their mothers couldn’t tip each other off. They would never hear the end of it if one got told sooner than the other, honestly. Tessa opens her laptop and fires up Skype, while Scott sets hot chocolates before them (comfort drinks, strictly outside of their meal plans but in light of the extraordinary circumstances, they had decided it was okay just this once). He settles in comfortably next to her but when she pauses before she hits the video-call button for his parent’s joint account, their eyes meet and he looks uneasy.

 

“We can do this,” she tells him evenly. “We’ve been through hell last week, we can deal with our parents being smug assholes.”

“I know,” he says. “I just… _their faces_.”

“I’m gonna try and screenshot it,” Tessa announces, to lighten the mood and he chuckles as she finally hits the button. They take a deep breath, in sync with each other and the start of the dialling tone of the computer program. And then the screen flares up to reveal his parents, his brother Charlie (as surprise feature guest) and her mother, sitting close together, huddled in what Tessa identifies as Alma’s kitchen. Her nerves flutter up at the sight of them but Scott takes her hand outside of the frame and she momentarily feels better. They got this. They got _everything._

 

“Hey guys, so good to see you,” Scott says into the slew of greetings from the other side.

“How is everybody?” Tessa asks which leads to ten minutes of them getting an update of the entire Moir clan plus distant cousins, at the end of which Alma smiles as if she’d just given a big speech but then seems to remember something and pauses.

“But we’ve been a little worried that you asked us all here,” she says, quizzically. “Is everything okay? Training going alright?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Tessa nods eagerly.

“Yeah, training is great, High Performance Camp was the bomb,” Scott says and Tessa can tell he is stalling just as much as she is. “We’re doing really good. Healthy and everything. Kicking ass and…taking names.”

“So, you wanted to talk to us,” Kate says, neither fooled nor distracted. “Why?” 

 

The moment of truth is finally here. Tessa squeezes his hand which she has not let go off yet, even if they’re both starting to sweat and it’s actually a little bit disgusting. But he looks at her and nods and so she opens her mouth to speak, finally.

 

“Um, so there’s, there’s this _thing_ ,” she begins and realises that she hasn’t even put the words into order in her head before. She hasn’t even planned ahead for what she wants to say. _Shit._ “We’ve kind of kept, um, to ourselves so far. Because we wanted to see how it goes first and like, be sure that it’s the right thing and…”

“And we didn’t want to lie,” Scott cuts in quickly.

“No,” she agrees and continues: “But we thought it would be better to just, you know, first…”

 

“Tess, honey, what is it?” Her mother interrupts, her eyebrows rising like the tide.

"Um. Okay. So,” Tessa stumbles, uselessly. “Scott and I…we’re kind of-”

“Together,” Scott supplies next to her.

“Yeah, I guess,” she nods. “I was gonna say dating but that’s not really it, eh?"

“Yeah no,” he agrees. “We’re, like, a couple, probably.”

“Partners,” she decides, because that seems the closest approximate to describe it, even if it’s not _remotely_ encompassing the whole thing. “ _Life_ partners.”

“Yes, that,” Scott says and they simultaneously draw in a breath to hold.

 

And then nothing happens. Their family cramped into the camera frame remain so impassive, for a moment Tessa believes that the feed froze. Were it not for the curtains moving from a gust of wind in the background, she’d actually check to make sure.

“That’s it,” she says instead to her unresponsive addressees. “That’s the news.”

“Did we break them?” Scott mumbles under his breath and she doesn’t have to look over at him to know he’s making that ‘I am stage-whispering into my non-existent beard’-face of his.

 

And then some invisible band snaps and Kate and Alma start giggling while Joe just blurts out a hollering laugh and Charlie damn well yells: “Goddamnit!”

“I knew that was it!” Joe exclaims, grinning from ear to ear and then patting his son’s shoulder. “Pay up, Charles! Ah, Scottie, you’re my best boy!” 

“What?” Scott says beside Tessa the same time Alma chastises her other son for cursing.

Tessa looks at Scott, perplexed, and then back to their family.

“He won the bet when you’d tell us,” Kate shrugs informatively and Tessa’s jaw drops.

“You knew?” She asks, all high-pitch and genuine bafflement. (Which, in retrospect she realises, was quite silly.)

“Honey, of course we knew, we’re your _parents._ We’ve seen you grow up together, we know how you act when you’re…,” her mother says and then tries to put it sensibly what she means: “You know, _being adults_ together. Just because you never admitted it doesn’t mean we believed you.”

 

 _Oh God._ Or dear lord. They knew? They knew all this time? They knew in 2008? And durning Carmen Season? They knew…now?!

 

“And Labour Day!” Shouts Joe to Charlie’s staunch agreement, looking like he just won the lottery.

“Oh, Labour Day,” Alma muses, her eyes drifting off into the distance wistfully. “That’s when I was _sure_.”

“You had a bet?!” Asks Scott, still computing.

“Oh, it’s a pool, buddy,” his father answers him easily, smugly. “Giant Pot.”

“There’s several, I think,” Kate elaborates. "Your siblings have a separate one-”

"But that’s about the wedding,” Charlie helpfully cuts in.

“And I think there’s one among the other skaters,” Tessa’s mother continues undeterred. "Meryl’s Mom told me about that back in the day.” 

“The Bowling Club has one,” Alma ads evenly. “And aunt Carol’s skating classes.”

“I knew there were _bets_ ,” Tessa says, because _duh_ , of course there’s been bets, for a time as a teenager, she’d been in on some of them. “I just didn’t know _you_ guys had one.”

“But we know you, sweetie,” Alma tells her. “It was always just a guessing game _when_ it would happen, never really if, eh?” 

 

“So you’re not mad at us from not telling you sooner?” Scott checks in.

“Or…back then?” Tessa asks right after.

“No,” Alma replies, shaking her head. "Not at all. We figured eventually you would.”

“You’re grown-ups,” Kate shrugs. “We always trusted that you knew what was best for you. And if you couldn’t handle it, you would come to us sooner or later.”

“When we worried it was never about _this_ ,” Alma says pointing at the camera lens and waving her hand around in a vague circle.

“Exactly,” Kate chimes in. “We worried more when you were drifting apart."

“That was the worst time,” Alma says and like a snap, her eyes glaze over. Alma really is the quickest crier Tessa knows and it’s absolutely no question who Scott gets his emotional side from.

“Mom…,” he drawls and sounds twelve and apologetic. 

“I’m sorry,” Alma hurries, decidedly Canadian. “That was just…a really hard time, munchkin.”

“For me, too,” Scott admits and looks at Tessa who meets his eye, connecting and smiling. _That’s over now_ , she thinks at him. _And we’re never going back._

 

“Okay, but can I just ask,” Charlie barges into their moment with a trained ease (if anybody is nonplussed at their joint checking out at frequent intervals, it’s their families). “So I got the details before Danny—because I really hope you didn’t already tell him…”

“Nope, he’s next on the call sheet,” Scott says when Charlie won’t go on without an answer.

“Good,” he says. “So, how long has this been going on?” 

Which is when Tessa and Scott look at each other in honest befuddlement because they had never really talked about that before.

“I don’t think we’ve…,” Tessa ponders, “did we ever pick a date?”

“Well, depends on what you wanna count. If you want to count the one thing…or the _other_ thing,” Scott arches his eyebrows up so high they basically spell innuendo.

“Yuck, guys,” Charlie’s reaction is expectedly instant and appropriately grossed out.

“The first thing,” Tessa decides discreetly.

“July 28th.” Scott literally does not hesitate for a single moment and she stares at him in wide-eyed wonder. He just shrugs nonchalantly. “I remember things.”

“Okay, yeah,” she mutters, her soul crawling from her gaze through his, hoping to land smack dab in his wonderful brain to sing him some cheesy love song, impossibly more in love with him than a moment before, which is quite the feat. “That would make it a little over a month, then.”

 

“And how’s it going so far?” Her mother asks them from a couple of planets over.

“Good,” Tessa answers automatically, raising her eyebrows slightly at that gorgeous man beside her which he picks up accurately and immediately as her asking him if they want to talk about the pregnancy situation right now with them, which they do not, and so nod an agreement to each other to postpone that particular conversation. Today, they focus on the _good._ “Great,” Tessa amends accordingly. “We’re really happy.”

 

“And you’re not worried?” Joe asks, a faint trace of triumph still burnt into his wrinkles. “About the comeback? And skating?”

“Nah, we’re solid,” Scott tells his father easily. “The career is safe, I’d wager. ‘Cause this is it. For me. Forever.” 

“Me too,” Tessa breathes, trying her damnedest not to jump on him and scar their family forever—but still can’t help how she drifts right back to staring at her partner like he is made from head to toe from Belgian chocolate. How is he this perfect? (Yes, perfect. Not excellent, _fucking_ perfect.)

 

“Ah, I’m so happy for you guys,” is what Alma says as she coughs a sob into the conversation.

“Mo-ohm,” Scott admonishes and his face reverts back to that of the little boy embarrassed to death by his mom giving him the white hand-me-down skates of his cousin to take the ice with again after that terrible, terrible day that the black cover slipped and all the boys had called him a _girl_ and laughed. (She hadn’t known him well then and wasn’t there for that episode but he had told her years later that this had been the only day in his life that he ever felt ashamed of figure skating).

“I’m sorry, I’m just so happy that you’re happy,” Alma cries, undeterred. “That you figured it out.” 

“We’re happy too,” Tessa hums and unlocks their hands to rub his thigh, looking at his mother to give him the privacy to reign his own tearing eyes in.

“But could you not tell the others yet, we wanna tell them personally?” Scott says after clearing his throat and sniffing once or twice. “And like, keep it in the family. This is need-to-know for now.”

 

“Of course,” Joe promises.

“Tess, you should call your father, too,” her mother tells her with a rueful tilt of her head. “He’ll get a kick out of it.” 

“I will,” Tessa says, ignoring the awkwardness that colours every mention of her father since the divorce.

“I remember he said that to me the day you broke up when you were _eight_ ,” Kate reminisces. “He said ‘One day, they’ll get together again, those two are two peas in a pod’.”

 

And from a million years and miles ago, a sort of elusive feeling tucks at Tessa’s heart again after quite, quite some time: a soft and adoring fondness for her dad. It’s true. For all his faults, her father had always been the staunchest supporter of Scott-and-Tessa, through raging hormones, cautioning mothers and scheming coaches, he had always told her: ‘Tutukin, he’s a good one, your Scott. He might not always be the best at showing you, but he loves you, with all his heart’. He’d been right.

 

The second biggest supporter and steadfast Scott-Moir-Up-Talker had always been his brother Danny, which was why Tessa opted for calling him next once they had cut the conversation with their London-based family branch off before Alma and Scott made the rest of them cry hysterically as well. Of course not before promising multiple times to come visit and _soon._  

 

Danny and his wife, who is named Tessa as well, pick up their call so fast, it’s like they have been waiting for it.

“Hi, Scott!” Tessa Moir says (whose full name Tessa _Virtue_ likes hearing the best when people try to distinguish them at family gatherings, just to hear someone say ‘Tessa Moir’ time and time again). “Hey Tessa.”

“Hi, Tessa,” Tessa Virtue echoes, because they have this thing of working their name into their conversation as often as possible because it had been very funny that very first time they met.

“Hey guys,” Danny says and ruffles through his short hair, apparently not liking what he sees of it in the video feed of himself on Skype. “So, what’s this about? Charlie just texted saying ‘You’re in for a treat’.”

“God, that _asshole_ ,” Scott huffs, deliberates how to go on for a second and then takes the forward approach. “Yeah, well, so Dad won the bet.”

 

“No!” Danny barks, immediately animated, eyes blown out and mouth staying open like a barn door for several seconds. “No way. But I got _next_ week!” He positively _whines_. “I was sure you were gonna tell us _after_ Autumn Classic…fuck, man, I was _this_ close!” He slaps his palms down flat and harsh onto his thighs, which Tessa gathers just by sound and the whooshing past of his hands because they are out of the frame. “You have no idea how much money is in that pot!”

“I can’t believe that you traitors all knew,” Scott shakes his head. 

“Scottie, come on!” Danny barks and it’s not quite a laugh. “The _second_ you moved to Montreal the phone calls started. For months you were like _Tessa this, Tessa that_. Felt like Canton all over again. And then last month you just _stopped_ calling. I just put two and two together that you probably didn’t need my advice anymore.”

 

"Guess I really _am_ subtle like a sledgehammer,” Scott sighs and Tessa can’t help but chuckle at his very late self-reflection and pats his shoulder sympathetically.

“Yeah, no shit.” Danny rolls his eyes and Tessa Moir laughs. But only until the cutest tiny voice pipes from somewhere off-camera: “Mommy, Daddy said ‘shit’ again.” 

Then Tessa Moir is the one to roll her eyes and once she is done with that, glares at her husband.

 

“Doesn’t mean you get to, Charlie,” Dan says, sounding just about half an ounce like he’s sorry and holds out his hand to beckon his daughter closer. “Come say hi to uncle Scott.”

 

“Hi, uncle Scott,” parrots Charlotte, trying to look at the computer screen and where she is going, climbing on top of her dad like a nimble, little mountain goat at the same time. Once she has settled in, she looks again and only then seems to notice Tessa Virtue next to her uncle there and her face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Hi, Tessa.”

“Hey kiddo, how are you?” Scott says at the same time his Tessa coos a hello and waves into the camera.

 

“Good,” Charlotte smiles brightly, revealing a grin that’s missing two-front teeth (which explains her stinkingly adorable lisp). “We’re going on a fchool trip tomorrow.”

“Oh, how great, whereto?” Scott enthuses (after she’s pretty sure he winced a little at the adorableness of his niece’s growth-caused speech impediment).

“The zoo.” She trills.

“Oh, neat,” Tessa Virtue exclaims and feels her eyes bulge as her upper body shrinks, going through the old ‘I am talking to a child’-transformation, her voice climbing up higher along with it. “Do they have elephants?”

“Yeah!” Charlotte nods excitedly.

“Nice,” she drawls. “I _love_ elephants.”

“Me too,” Scott’s niece tells her.

 

“Charlie,” Danny says, bouncing his daughter on his lap once to get her attention before pointing back to the screen. "Your uncle Scott and aunt Tessa are going to be like Mommy and Daddy now.”

“Really?” Charlotte squeals, pretty much exactly like she had at the Virtue-Moir extended-family-Christmas last year when Tessa-and-Scott got her that Elsa-and-Anna doll-set. “You’re gonna get _married_?!”

 

_OH. Oh no._

 

“Well, uh,” Scott mumbles, going rigid beside her and Tessa’s entire blood stops circulating in her body, the molecules soaring in zero-G and she’s got butterflies like a schoolgirl, holding her breath for what he might say next. “Not, I mean, not so soon.” _Holy shit._ “You know, we gotta go to the Olympics first.” There’s a pause, enough time for Tessa’s cheek to burn up hot enough to lower her head and study her kneecaps intently. She can’t breathe. “And this is also a secret for now.” Scott says, an afterthought. “Do you think you can keep that a secret, honeybear?”

Tessa looks up again in time to see Charlotte nod vigorously, a glint in her eye that tells her that the little girl is an avid and passionate secret-keeper.

 

Tessa Moir clears her throat sort of awkwardly but then pats her daughters head and says: “She has been campaigning hard for this, for _you two_ , you know. Annoying her brother. And her Dad.”

“Did you really want this to happen?” Tessa asks, pushing through the tremor in her voice.

“Yeah,” Charlotte nods, suddenly shy.

“Why?” She asks.

“‘Cause you look so pretty together,” the girl admits and looks somewhere off camera, as if admitting it is somehow embarrassing. (And really, does the _entire_ goddamn world want them to be together?!)

 

“How do they look?” Tessa Moir asks her kid. “What do you always say, baby?”

“Like in the movies,” Charlotte says. “Like the Disney ones.”

“Aw, that’s so nice,” Tessa tells her emphatically. “Thank you, sweetheart.” 

“So, that’s what we wanted to tell you guys,” Scott says then, like he wants to end the conversation before Charlotte has the chance to talk them into a mortgage on a house or something.

“Good,” Danny nods, smoothing out his daughter’s hair. “Fudgin’ finally, man. We’re happy for you.” He earns himself a slap on the shoulder from his wife for the swear-word approximate but is too occupied reading Scott’s signalling to end the conversation…because there are still some more calls to be made. “Be in touch, okay?”

 

They say their goodbyes and for a solid 30 seconds after Tessa hit the red button, there is a charged, flurrying silence between them. Spreading into her bones, right down to her toes until she can’t take it anymore.

“Did your niece just propose for you?” She asks, willing her voice to sound casual.

“I think so.” Scott says and she can feel his eyes on her, daring her to look at him.

“You’re gonna have to do that again yourself, you know that though, right?” She tells him and when she looks up, he’s laughing. And then he’s kissing her and for the next forty-five minutes, telling the family is a strange and distant task for some hazy future they can’t be bothered to see because they’re too busy coaxing the other into reaching oblivion together. And _fuck_ , is it good. It’s so good, she cries and scratches his back bloody.

 

A shower, Scott threatening to sue her for bodily harm and a change into their lounging wear later, Jordan Virtue tilts her head at them quizzically from her living room in Toronto, her face blown up in the full-screen mode on Tessa’s laptop, the miniature frame of Tessa and Scott in the bottom right corner looking like a disgustingly cute sweat pants commercial.

“Little sister,” Jordan says sharply, which is the precise second Tessa remembers that her last text response to her is about a week overdue. “Nice to see _you’re_ still alive. Hey Scott.”

“Hi,” Scott says and sounds like his body still feels like jelly.

“Hey, sorry,” Tessa tells her sister, knowing that she knows that she’s been unusually awol from their running commentary on the happenings of each other’s lives via phone. “We had a bit of a rough week last week.”

“Everything okay?” Jordan asks, immediately dropping her chagrin and switching into concern.

“Yeah, now it is,” Tessa says quickly. “I’ll tell you some other time, it’s a bit of a long story.”

“Alright,” Jordan nods. “But everything’s alright in training? Legs feel okay?” 

 

Tessa nods as Scott chimes in: “It’s going so good, we’re so ready to go.”

“Yeah, Autumn Classic is coming up next week…first competition after the last Olympics,” Tessa says and turns to Scott as if they’re doing an interview. “And since Monday, we’ve really clicked into the programs, eh? I mean, they’ve been trained well but they’re also…I don’t know, now we’re really feeling them, yeah?”

“Absolutely,” Scott agrees with his press-conference voice that tends to creep in when they’re talking about skating. “It’s just kinda daunting to go back to competitions. Gotta get back in the mindset for that.” 

“But it’s exciting, too,” Tessa agrees. “It’s gonna be so much fun!” _They’re stalling again._

 

“Awesome,” Jordan says, clipped, because she _knows_ that they are. And she won’t stand for it. “So, small talk aside…I’m guessing the reason Scott is here is because you’re finally gonna come out to me, huh?”

“Who told you?” Tessa snaps, suddenly livid. Who _fucking_ blabbed?!

“There _might_ be a group chat,” her sister shrugs, entirely unapologetic.

“Jordan!” Tessa complains.

 

“Not gonna lie, I’m kind of annoyed that you guys told _his_ brothers first,” the other woman shoots right back. “And then I waited an _entire_ hour for your call after Danny said you just hung up? Long enough to break him so he told me. What on earth were you guys doi-” and Jordan pauses, takes stock of their matching comfy home clothes and makes a face. “Ugh, I don’t even wanna know do I?” Another pause and her eyes flicker away from Tessa. “Argh, Scott, don’t gimme that look, that’s disgusting.” Tessa turns to see but by then Scott has already switched to innocent puppy eyes and she just swats him on the knee because she suspects it’s warranted, even if she can’t be sure.

“So you didn’t know until today?” She asks her sister.

 

“Oh I _knew_ ,” Jordan groans. “I lost the bet because I was sure you’d tell us Labour Day, mostly because Mom said Scott was going to come join you for a couple of days but then you didn't and still —like, spiting me— posted that picture with the sparklers on Instagram. Which is exactly the kind of sappy romantic shit Scott would do.”

“Hey,” Scott mutters. “That was a gesture.”

“It was and it was really sweet,” Tessa supports him, immediately and firmly.

 

He’d brought the sparklers from his grocery run, after they’d hung up with JF, after Tessa had told them she was pretty sure she was pregnant. And he’d taken her to the beach dressed in his clothes and lit one for each of them. A gesture of hope and celebration. Tessa had kissed him softly and asked him to take a picture because the sunset was just so pretty and no matter how queasy she felt about their possible future, she’d wanted to keep that memory for posterity. 

 

In the picture, you couldn’t see that she held up three sparklers and in the caption, she just put two sparkling emojis, because while she was ready to allude to someone else being there with her (because she was so in love with him, she was overflowing and wanted at least some little thing public to show for it), she hadn’t been quite ready to add that third one. In the now, Scott’s hand closes around hers in a silent thank you and she smiles at him, a little sad and a lot grateful and he nods at her, ever so slightly. They’re getting there. It’s gonna be okay. They got each other. They got _everything._

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jordan says, with an eye roll that would be insensitive if she knew what had really happened but she doesn’t so it’s completely fine (later, once Tessa has told her, she’ll apologise profoundly but there’s no way she could have known.) “Also the sweatshirt you’re wearing in that is clearly his.”

“So was the Bluejays hat,” Scott supplies with a shrug. “She didn’t bring hers.”

“I would’ve made so much money if you’d just come out on Labour Day,” Jordan groans and Tessa wonders not for the first time how much damn money Scott’s father won himself today. (And how he’d guessed correctly.)

“Sorry,” she tells her sister, the sentiment utterly fake.

“Ah, it’s alright,” Jordan waves if off. “I’m glad you got your shit together, last time I visited I was fully prepared to walk in on you going at it pretty much every time I turned a corner, so I’m kind of happy I’m getting this confirmed while you’re both fully clothed.”

 

_Subtle like a sledgehammer._

 

“Were we that bad?” Tessa asks unnecessarily. 

“Bad, Tessa?” Jordan guffaws. “When I arrived you both had wet hair from a shower I’m pretty sure you took together and you _still_ reeked of sex. And let’s not talk about the way you looked at each other that whole weekend. Like you wanted to do stuff I never want to think about you guys ever doing. I’m not _blind._ And I know what your face does when you’re in love. Especially when you’re in love with _that one_.”

“I feel like I should leave you two alone for a while,” Scott quips.

 

“No, that’s okay, you can stay,” Jordan sighs cheekily, turning her attention to him. “Are you coming to Drake with us? _Your_ girlfriend, _my_ boyfriend and I are going. We could double-date it.”

“Oh, when’s that?” Scott asks and Tessa knows before he does that he’s busy that day.

“October seventh,” Jordan says.

“That’s the Friday, right?” Scott ponders. “Nope, can’t do, gotta go see Champagne Papi without me.”

 

“Uhh, that’s a good song for our playlist,” Tessa exclaims, the thought hitting her the way she hits his knee.

“Which one?” Asks Scott the same time that Jordan asks, in a dread-filled voice: "What _kind_ of playlist?”

“Hold On We’re Going Home,” Tessa tells Scott first and then turns to her sister: “Not a dirty playlist, JJ. It was a task in therapy a while ago, we were supposed to communicate our feelings through songs and we kind of made a playlist where we send each other songs that remind each other of us.”

“Aw, that’s cute,” Jordan says and it sounds sincere, before deadpanning, “how much of that is country?”

“A lot,” Scott offers easily.

 

And he’s not wrong. Most of the songs he’s added are country ones but he blames that on the type of music, the sappiness of the lyrics that just “speak to him”. But there are so many other songs on there too, of vastly different genres. Some sexy, some sad, some, like James Arthur’s _Safe Inside_ that Tessa had found on her Spotify shuffle, sent to Scott with the words “After Sochi, you to me?” and he’d texted back, ten minutes later: “Yes. Also fuck you for making me cry at the gym.”, followed two more minutes later by “I love you so much, please never leave me”. 

 

She’d easily agreed and added the song regardless of it making him emotional. She liked the cataloguing of it, the list they made, the communication in this one way that was so universal to them, the one language they always, always spoke. It had gotten so far that sometimes when they quibbled about something, Scott would just stop the argument and put on a song. They’d listen, look at each other and in 80% of the cases, _make up_. 

 

(Roughly half a year later, Scott will add a song to that playlist overnight and put it on in his car on the way to the rink and ask her, on the first two notes: “For us…and I was thinking maybe…for the Free?” and she’ll know. She’ll just _know_. And she’ll look down at his phone, reading the white on black letters: “Come What May, added nine hours ago” and know they’ll win the Olympics.)

 

“You’re precious and it’s really gross,” Jordan sighs. “But, tell me one thing, Danny said that this is supposed to be a secret, right? So you’re not gonna tell anyone you’re a couple? Like…the world? I have an idea that there are some people who might care to know.”

“It’s need-to-know for now,” Tessa says, using Scott’s earlier phrasing. “Family and close friends. I’ll tell Dad and our brothers, and Mimi, for now. Scott will call Cara and Sheri later when they’re done at the shop and Chiddy knows because Scott couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Marie and Patch know, so Romain knows, too,” Scott keeps listing, more for completeness than to tell Jordan. “And our therapist obviously, because he kinda made this happen.”

“He did kinda, didn’t he?” Tessa muses, thinking fondly of JF, hopefully enjoying his free afternoon somewhere.

 

“Yeah. And I guess as soon as we’ll go back on the competition circuit, people there will know,” Scott says. “Kaitlyn and Andrew will, definitely.”  

“Meaghan and Eric,” Tessa adds.

“Oh, like a shot,” Scott agrees. “And Kaetlyn, the younger. Everyone who’s been around a while...The Shibs.”

“But that’s fine, they won’t say anything because they all know I have dirt on every last one of them so if they go running their mouths, I could destroy them,” Tessa says easily as death.

Scott spits out a throaty laugh. “What dirt could you possible have on little Kitty Osmond?”

Tessa looks at him, opens her mouth, rakes her brain, comes up empty, closes her mouth again, pouts, thinks and then declares resolutely: “I’ll find some.”

This time Scott laughs out loud.

 

“But I meant like…the media?” JJ reiterates, an edge of impatience in her voice. “Like…Canada? They’ll have a field day.”

“Oh no, no way,” Scott trumpets like a shot. “Can you imagine? Scott fucking Russel shoving a mic in our face and asking us about _this_ for the evening news? God damnit, I hadn’t even thought about that. Can you imagine the CBS? They’d botch a two hour documentary together and all come in their pants simultaneously. And then they’d ask me when the last time was that _I_ did that in training.”

Tessa and Jordan snort out two identically ugly laughs.

“For real, though,” Scott says into the barely ladylike grunting. “No. We’re not telling the press.”  

 

“I think that also would take the focus off of the entire comeback,” Tessa says while her laugh dies from the accuracy of her prediction. “They’d just cheapen our career together and boil all our work and our relationship outside of this down to the fact that we’re sleeping together now, that’s not fair. They wouldn’t even look at our skating anymore, they’d just get drunk on the narrative.”

“Exactly,” Scott harps. “Yeah, I wanna _skate._ I came back to skate. For you and to skate and to win the Olympics. But I don’t wanna win anything on the merit of our romantic relationship. I wanna win because we’re the fucking best in the world.” 

“Yeah, no, absolutely,” Tessa agrees fervently. “This right here, that’s _private._ ”

 

“But what will you tell them when they ask?” Jordan wonders. “You know, they’re _bound_ to ask.”

“Yup, they will.” Scott says at the same time Tessa tells her sister: “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should agree on a strategy before we actually get out there again?” Scott offers.

“I guess we can always evade the question?” Tessa says. “I mean, we’ve done that for years, we either denied or pivoted the questions. We can do that again.”

“Yeah. We’re pretty good at that,” Scott nods. “I mean, I told people some bullshit about you being my ‘more mature little sister’ when I pretty much wanted to bone you 24/7 and then what a compliment it was that people would think we would wanna do that off-ice when I actually _was_.” 

“Ugh, _language_ , guys,” Jordan whines.

“Sorry,” Scott says.

 

“So that’s the plan,” Tessa decides, ignoring this interlude. “We’ll just keep saying it’s a _compliment._ ”

“And we’re doing our jobs well,” Scott says.

“And we’re business partners.”

“I _fucking_ hate that fucking business partners thing,” he looks positively disgusted but then shrugs fatalistically anyway. “But yeah, let’s. I guess I just don’t want to _deny_ this. Like if people pry really hard, we can just say we don’t talk about our private lives, eh?”

 

“Because that’ll sound so convincing coming from two people that actually had a reality tv-show,” Tessa says, raising her eyebrows. 

“That was a _sports documentary_ ,” Scott scoffs.

“Yeah, right,” JJ grimaces, overdoing the sarcasm a little. “Totally.”

“Pshhh, what do I know? I never watched that shit,” Scott grimaces back, even more effeminate but then goes right back to severe seriousness. “We can still say it. This is _our_ comeback, we’re doing things differently this time.”

“With the tagline ‘This time it’s personal’?” Tessa challenges still, playing devil’s advocate.

“The skating is,” Scott corrects her. “This, _us_ , that’s private life and we don’t talk about it, period.” And then he turns fully to her, to utter a plea that is completely echoed by her own heart. “I just don’t want to say that we’re not a couple when we are.”

“Me neither,” Tessa tells him. “I don’t want to deny this relationship.” 

 

Monday, 1:02 PM March 12th 2018

 

“We need to deny this relationship,” Tessa says, right off the bat at their first couple’s coaching session after winning the Olympics (!!!!!twice!!!!!) in PyeongChang on February 20th 2018. 

“They just confirmed our spot on Ellen,” Scott tells JF before he’s even sat down properly. “She’ll eat us alive.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Tessa says, fretting and sweating already. “And if we don’t deny it there, it’ll be as good as confirming it. _Fucking crap-shit_ , what are we gonna do?”

“Okay, guys…let’s settle down a little,” JF says evenly, calm as a mountain lake. “You’ll be fine. It’s easy…we’re just gonna have to teach you how to lie.”

 

(They fucking suck at lying.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay...so the truth is out, at least partially...and now.......the "lying" begins. This will be a big focus of the next chapter because we've jumped ahead in time to the nitty gritty of 2018, I hope you're as excited as I am to delve into ALL of their bullshit (and I say this with the biggest fondness).
> 
> Also word credit goes out to TS again for this chapter because a lot of their screaming went into this, some of it actually ad verbatim..you know how they are ;)
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


	15. ...Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monday on a Tuesday today!
> 
> This chapter jumps through the times a lot, I tried to make it clear where we are but it might be confusing still.
> 
> The main session is on March 25th but we see through Scott's eyes much of the session we left on last chapter, the one from March 12th. BUT we do also reminisce together about the Olympics and some interviews down the line.
> 
> All of these interviews can be found on youtube for a closer look.
> 
> All scientific rambling about Lying is taken from "Behave" by Rob Sapolsky. Word credit goes out to Scott Moir, you will know when ;)

Monday, 4:07 PM March 25th 2018

 

It’s a day late in March when Tessa and Scott get the chance to get back together with JF after a bunch of press, sponsorship engagements, prepping for the Stars On Ice Tours through Japan and Canada and trying to see their family at least some time in between all that. They’ve kept to their four PM appointment but that’s pretty much it. They’re not in Montreal, instead sitting on Tessa’s couch in her London house (that by now pretty much is _their_ house because Scott had given up his apartment in Ilderton at the back end of 2017) and it’s not Thursday but Monday. It’s just that there are some wounds to lick with JF and they’re leaving for Japan the next day and so it really has to happen now.

 

Scott had been scared that Tessa suggested hitting up JF so she could scream at him under professional supervision about telling people at the Hockey game yesterday that he had to get back to her instead of grabbing a beer with them. She’d alerted him to the fact that this had slipped into the grapevine of the social networks in a way that made him fear a reckoning but she had quickly said that, no, she was basically okay with it (even if a little peeved because he was the one of them who was really more rigid about keeping their relationship under wraps these days but then turned around and trumpeted it out to anybody who would listen how he really had to get back to her at eleven at night to her house in London, that nobody was supposed to know was now also kinda _his_ house in London). She wanted to talk about other things. The public denials of their romantic relationship in general and the one on _Ellen_ in particular. Because that had been a ride.

 

“Have you recovered a little?” Is the first thing JF asks them after they established the connection and Tessa has tucked herself beside Scott and her feet underneath his legs.

“I still can’t feel my face,” Scott says exasperatedly and Tessa chuckles.

“That bad?” JF asks like he really doesn’t need to.

“Terrifying,” Scott tells him “It was worse than any competition day.”

“But I think we did alright,” Tessa mutters and sounds like she is trying to convince herself more than them.

“Tess, nobody who knows us believed that,” Scott tells her, like he might have before, once or twice. “I got texts from guys from middle school saying they feel _sorry_ for me for having to keep this a secret. They feel sorry that we’re getting bothered about our ‘secret relationship’.”

“Well, most people who _don’t_ know us must have believed it,” Tessa says and she has said that before, too, pointing at her phone one time after the fact when they were cuddled up in bed together and she’d shown him tweets of people desperately trying to make sense of their behaviour. ( _Good luck with that_ , he’d thought then, _took us nearly half a year of intense therapy to figure it out this time around._ )

 

“Did _you_ believe us?” Scott asks JF and doesn’t know what he expects, really.

“Well, I know the truth, so I’m really the wrong person to ask,” their therapist says, almost cringing.

“Come on, Jeff, you’re the body language expert,” Scott challenges. “Would you have believed us if you had no idea what was real?”

He says nothing, and there it is.

“Fuck,” Scott breathes. Not that he’s surprised.

“But it’s not so bad,” JF promises. “People still put more stock into what you said than how you acted.”

 

“Well, how did we _act_ then?” Scott asks.

“Like you’re terrible liars,” JF shrugs and Scott guesses that’s fair.

“So did we confirm it anyway?” He mumbles to his psychologist in Montreal.

“No, I don’t think so. Like I said, you said _no_ ,” JF tells him. “That’s the official statement for now and people tend to buy the official version. That’s just how us humans are wired, we don’t expect deceit. We usually want to believe what people tell us.” 

“I just don’t understand how we did so badly,” Scott muses, looking over at Tessa who looks ill. “We _trained_ for this.”

 

And he recalls that session so clearly. Another hastily called in appointment with JF on March 12th because they’d just gotten the call with the day of their execution: The Ellen Show taping in Burbank, California. One of the biggest network talkshows in America, viewed by the _entire_ world on the internet after the national US-wide TV-broadcast. The place were un-outed couples went to deny their whispered about relationships. That is like…a real thing Ellen is known for. 

 

And that’s where they were headed. With their un-out relationship they’d been keeping somewhat okay under the radar for nearly two damn _years_. Scott closes his eyes and remembers how it went, sitting down with JF in Laval. After their therapist had told them he’d teach them how to lie and then pulled his laptop out and fired up the YouTube and typed “Virtue Moir Interview” into the search bar, looking for some recent ones to pour over and landing on the one they’d done on their Toronto media extravaganza with eTalk. The one where they made them read those ‘hilarious’ over-the-top-tweets after the talking bit.

 

“Are we seriously gonna watch the tapes back?” Scott asked Tessa under his breath, absolutely in no mood to do _that._

“I think so,” Tessa said, scrunching up her nose.

“I don’t wanna see this,” Scott complained instantly.

“It might help us,” Tessa tried. “And we really need all the help we can get.” 

“But I don’t wanna…,” he whined. 

“Scott, don’t be a baby,” his partner said, swatting him on his arm.

 

And then he couldn’t do anything but watch the horror as the interview unspooled before them. From the start with Tessa handling almost the entire thing by herself to him turning to her at a certain point with his whole body, completely blocking out the host and diving into Tessa’s eyes as if she was the only person on the planet. Down to every last stupid rambling thing he’d said after. He was so wildly out of form and he’d never seen himself this wobbly with the media. He’d been doing these interviews for fucking ever…what had happened to him?!

 

“Well, I obviously did _great_ ,” Scott sighed deeply at the end of it and pinched the bridge of his nose to contain his self-loathing. “Listing actresses I _don’t_ have a crush on to cast you in a movie about our life and yeah, I’m the beast to your beauty. I don’t know why I even open my mouth.” 

“Well, to be fair I nearly slipped up on the fake love thing,” Tessa says, rubbing his knee sympathetically. “I would have if you hadn’t gotten in there.” 

 

And that’s true. Tessa had jumped on one tweet that said ‘Tessa and Scott’s fake love is ruining real love for the rest of us’ and got sort of offended. He’d heard it in the cadence of her voice then and saw it on her face in the playback and she wouldn’t stand for that to be the takeaway of their relationship. (Even if it was sort of the _one_ takeaway from their line of how people believed their love on the ice because they were just ‘doing their jobs well’.) And she’d said “Oh, but it’s not fake, we really do-” and then he drawn in a sharp breath to remind her to listen to herself and she’d paused and stumbled and said “care about each other”, which in hindsight, just seemed weird. They loved each other, that was public knowledge. The fact that they _made love_ wasn’t, but anyway, now _that_ whole thing was going to be on the internet forever.

 

“That was my redemption for the restless sleeping thing,” Scott told her, finding himself reminded of another incident which was also going to be on the internet forever. That had happened because of another one of those ‘How well do you know your partner’ games people made them play so much. They’d been asked who of them was more likely to sleep in and miss practice and Tessa had said that everything sleep related was usually her. And Scott, for some ungodly reason had felt compelled to say: “If you _get_ to sleep, sometimes you’re just so restless”.

 

Which, in his defence, was completely true and he probably could have known that even if they hadn’t been sleeping together and in the same beds since she was eighteen. He could have known from back when they were children, or she could have told him (God knows they’d had enough conversations for that to just have come up some time), he could have also been told by B2Ten as they were monitoring their sleeping patterns. But he had _said_ it, because the week before he’d woken up several nights from a light cough after drifting off and found her awake, stressing about the upcoming competitions and not finding a good position to get comfortable enough to sleep. 

 

But, realistically, he could have just kept his mouth shut and left things at that, a weird but understandable thing of one skating partner to know about the other skating partner. But the same moment he said it, it was Tessa that drew in the sharp warning breath and shifted uneasily in her seat beside him and he realised what a terrible mistake he’d just made. So he clamoured. For something. _Anything._ And came up with the add-on: “I read”, which was possibly the least sensical thing he could have said in that moment.

 

“Oh, that. Yeah…that was pretty…heavy,” Tessa agreed as she glanced off into the distance, probably replaying the episode back in her mind. “Twitter is still…whatever, it’s still out there.”

“Why does this all sound so fake?” Scott wondered aloud, desolate. “We’ve lied about our sex life for years?”

"Well they never asked if we were _having sex_ explicitly,” Tessa said. “They asked if we were a couple and we never were. So technically we never lied. _Now_ we’re lying. Even if by omission.” 

“Do you wanna see more material?” JF offered helpfully.

“Please God, no,” Scott begged.

 

“Well then, we’re gonna look at what we can see here,” JF accepted, if somewhat disappointed. “Body language. Is there anything you’ve noticed yourselves?”

“Scott’s bad at making eye-contact when he’s talking about sensitive stuff,” Tessa shot immediately, as if there’d been a treat for the fastest answer, “and he can’t do it at all when he’s lying.”

“Wow,” Scott nodded in overdramatic offence. “You didn’t have to think about that at all, did you?”

 

“I mean…it’s right there,” she said, waving her hand at JF’s laptop. “You either look at the ceiling or at the floor. And you fiddle with anything in reach.”

“Well, what about your weird voice and the stone face?” Scott quarrelled, aware that he did not sound a smidge like a thirty year old man. “Like that’s better.” 

“At least I can look people in the eye and lie,” Tess talked back, taking the immature bait by a mouthful.

“Awesome quality,” Scott mock-congratulated her, just shy of sticking out his tongue at her. “Good on you, T.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she huffed.

“Yeah, and you know what _I_ mean,” he parroted and fell into seriousness. “You’re good at it, I’m crap at it. So you do it. You take the lead. You tell Ellen that we’re not a couple.” 

“Fine, I will,” Tessa said and sounded sincerely prissy now.

“Fine,” he hissed, momentarily peeved by her peevedness.

 

“Guys,” JF warned, unnecessarily because Scott would have said the next thing even without his therapist getting in there. (Tessa-and-Scott had reached a point in their relationship and their communication where they pretty much gave themselves therapy. Which basically meant that if they quibbled about something, before long, one or the other would “play JF” as they had dubbed it, and get the conversation back on track. Like so…)

“Sorry,” Scott apologised and said in no uncertain terms how he felt, so that there couldn’t be a misunderstanding. So that Tessa could hear it spoken out loud what he wanted to communicate. “I know this isn’t productive. I’m just mad at myself.”

“And I’m annoyed with the situation,” she said, equally as honest. 

“With me?” He asked on both reflex and the genuine need to clarify, still somehow very ready to assume that everything that annoyed her was his fault (he wondered when or if he would ever shake that complex. Probably not before she did).

 

“No,” she replied firmly and he believed her (which was the progress made there, he guessed). “With the fact that we have to lie in the first place.”

“But we agreed-” He started but she cut him off.

“Yes, we did and I still agree,” she said. “I’m annoyed that we have to do this at all. I’m annoyed that we just won the Olympics and all anybody wants to talk about is how it felt after the music ended and if we’re sleeping together. No ‘How did you get your edges?’, no ‘Tell us about the way you rearranged your entire body mechanics to be able to skate like this at thirty’. Only ‘Are you dating?’. I don’t know, I guess I just wish people didn’t care so much about _this_ part of it.”

“But they always did,” Scott said, palms raised to the ceiling. What was he supposed to do about it?!

“I know. I know all of this,” Tessa snapped. “But I’m scared and I’m _complaining_.”

 

“If we wanna be productive here,” JF tried to get back in between them, gauging their reaction and when he found them pliant enough, went on tentatively: “I think we should make a solid plan for what you are going to do and say on that show. You say you need to deny, so you will deny.”  He declared and went right into prep-mode. “What stands in the way of that denial being believable, aside from Scott’s inability to look into people’s eyes when talking about sensitive things?”

“Credibility,” Tessa said like the model student she is and it was really a wonder that she hadn’t put up her arm first. “We’ve not publicly denied the relationship _once_ in the entire comeback and people have noticed.”

 

“But that was because nobody asked us specifically before the Olympics,” Scott reminded her needlessly, because she knew this. She’d been kinda there for it all.

“They’re asking _now_ ,” she said, equally without the need to remind him. “So we gotta…deny it somewhere else. Before. So it’s not like we’re just pulling it out of our ass for Ellen. And I mean, what about at that interview today? Why not start there? What about if we say the words on Tout Le Monde and have it out there before Ellen? I mean…I could learn to…say we’re not a couple in French? That would be…cute, maybe?”

Scott’s response was a scoff, which was neither helpful nor in any way acknowledged by his partner.

“JF, what’s that in French,” Tessa went on instead. “’No, we’re not a couple’.”

“Non, nous ne sommes pas un couple,” JF answered her, translating easily.

 

“Non, nous ne sommes pas un couple,” she repeated diligently. “Got it. I can say that. That could work.”

“What if they don’t ask us about it?” Scott wondered about the slim chance.

“If they don’t, I’ll work it in,” Tessa decided. "And you’ll just…smile and say nothing. I’ll handle it. And we’ll do the same on Ellen. You’ll say the compliment thing and I’ll…I’ll say no when she asks. Simple as that. We got this.”

 

“Do you want to rehearse it? Because that might be smart,” JF mused, crossing his legs. “Like a program, you know? If you’ve played it through a couple of times, it won’t throw you so much when it happens. We can visualise it together, go through a couple of scenarios so you’re comfortable in the uncomfortable, just like in Korea.”

“That’s a good idea,” Tessa agreed and JF wasted no time at all, uncrossing his legs again and rocking forward to the edge of the couch, looking at Tessa inquisitively. 

“So are you dating?” He asked.

“No,” Tessa jumped.

“Too fast,” JF admonished and repeated himself: “So are you a couple?” 

“No, we’re not,” said Tessa after a beat, just long enough to be a breath but not long enough to be a pause.

“Better,” JF nodded. “But what now? Are you really not?”

“No,” she insisted, sounding like a robot.

“But I saw you together,” JF claimed. “I saw kissing just outside.”

“What?” Tessa sounded incredulous, pulling the face Scott could feel emerging on his own. Nobody would ever ask them that, right? They wouldn’t be caught kissing where any TV people could spot them anyway. (Hopefully.)

 

“You opened yourself up, you left me room to get in with a follow-up,” JF explained. “Don’t let that happen. If that happens, I _got_ you. Go on talking, derail the question, so nobody can rattle you. Talk over the moment. Again. Are you a couple?”

"No, we’re not,” Tessa said and Scott noticed that he fucking hated the sound of _that._ “But we’re great friends. And we have such a unique relationship that we’ve built over the last twenty years and we love skating together. So it’s a really great compliment when people see the connection there. It means we’re doing a job.”

“Good,” JF praised, but not for long. “Again. Are you a couple?”

“No, we’re not, but-,” Tessa started but Scott couldn’t watch that weird tragically comedic loop anymore. He didn’t want to have to listen to Tessa drill the denying of their romantic love for each other into her system as he watched.

 

“Stop. Please,” he called out and two heads snapped around to stare at him. “Look, I get that that’s smart and all but…this fucking sucks. Just listening to you say that stuff. So clinical and like, fake. It feels shitty. It feels shitty to hear.” 

“Well, frankly, it’s gonna feel shitty on Ellen,” JF shrugged with little sympathy. “You’re lying, guys. You’re _lying_ and your good people so you’re bound to feel like crap for it. Listen, let me tell you a bit about the biology of lying.”

 

JF didn’t gave him time to protest, not that he would have wanted to. It had been a while since his psychologist had last bestowed some bio-psychological knowledge onto him and whenever he did, it was still always interesting, so Scott didn’t try and stop him. Plus, while JF was talking about what happened in the human body when the mind inhibiting that body thought to lie, Scott didn’t have to watch Tessa train how to deny him as if it was a new lift. 

 

“When neurotypical people lie, it’s always preceded by an internal struggle,” JF started explaining. “I told you once about how your amygdala registers disgust at yourself when you do something morally wrong and then you feel guilty. This is what happens when you tell a lie. We have been widely raised to understand that lying is bad. Because we as social animals rely heavily on communication and need it to survive. So we need people to be honest with us and to be honest ourselves in order to _live_. Ergo, lying is mostly bad. Of course we all learn the exceptions to that as we grow up, why it’s sometimes okay to lie. Which is why we do end up lying occasionally. If we can justify it.” 

 

JF let his eyes travel between his clients for a while and waited for them to show their understanding and willingness to hear more before he continued. “So that’s the first thing that happens. Biologically, before you tell a lie, your brain legitimately pauses and cautions you not to lie at first and then looks for a moral justification to, second. In your case, that justification would be protecting both your romantic relationship _and_ the legacy of your athletic career. And then…what human brains do, also at the same actual spacial spot as that decision and reasoning, interestingly enough, is the thought processes needed to be able to lie _well_. So at any time a neurotypical human goes through the internal debate of lying versus not lying, it’s this progression: “Don’t Do It” plus “If You Do It, Do It Right”. This causes a veritable pause in behaviour, which might manifest itself as a stutter, an actual pause and break in speaking, in rambling or looking away and maybe counter-measures to all of those responses with their opposites in the next step processing them as they occur.” 

 

JF nodded to himself, apparently happy with his explanation. “And people can tell. Because we are so reliant on others telling us the truth, we are very perceptive of deceit. So humans will always be able to tell to a certain degree if someone is being dishonest with them. It always comes down to how good of a liar you are, how well you are trained in dishonesty.”

“But that’s the thing,” Scott harped. “We’ve always been so good at it. I mean, were lying about the leg pain and how healthy Tessa felt after the first surgery, for months and months. To the media, the ISU, to-”

 

“Ourselves,” Tessa supplied.

“Exactly,” Scott agreed. “And, like…the shit we said about each other in interviews that we were so happy to be training together again? Tessa _hated_ me. And not without good reason. I think I mentioned it took us a year to be even friends again after that whole thing and that’s not an understatement.” Scott still shudders remembering that time and sitting in JF’s office that day, it hadn’t been any different. “But we were doing those interviews spelling the biggest bullshit about being best friends and how I had been _so_ supportive and we’d been talking through the recovery when we simply hadn’t been. We were pretty much strangers at that point. We hadn’t talked for two months and once we started again it nearly broke us. She was so hurt and I felt so guilty…but we lied to the press like we were born to do it. How are we so bad at it now?”

 

That’s the thing he couldn’t get over. Because if you’d have watched him in any of those old interviews in 2008 and 2009 promising up and down the river that Tessa was fine, that their relationship was fine or at that TED talk in 2015 where they postulated how together they felt when really, they were just ever so slowly finding their footing again, only ever so slowly able to look at each other for longer than a few seconds when they talked without wanting to cry. 

 

How they spun their own narrative from childhood to present, leaving out such great chunks of their truth. All the heartbreak, the being in love with each other for years, the weird feelings attached to that. Which were the goddamn reason for all that therapy in the first place. The many talks they’d had about wanting each other while leaving the big conversation about actually making it happen in some far off future that at that point in 2015 had seemed null and void. With Tessa still doing her great year of Yes ( _, please show me a world in which I don’t need Scott Moir anymore_ ) and Scott asking his girlfriend half-heartedly to move into the fixer-upper with him (to please make him feel like he could have a future without _Tessa_ ). 

 

Their official stories had gone from wholesome narrative to more wholesome narrative. In their youth, in their book, in their fucking tv show, in their TED talk and in all of their interviews. And Scott had never had any issues selling those narratives. Even with being a crap actor for confessionals on third rate reality-tv and even if sometimes he said silly things or kissed Tessa on the cheek when he couldn’t help it, he still sold it. He did _not_ sell it anymore. So why was he so useless at it now?

 

“Because you’re protecting something precious this time around,” JF answered. “Back then, you protected something _precarious._ But —and that’s important— you also protected yourselves from each other. That was double-layer protection if you will. You would have naturally been better at lying because you were hiding things to keep yourselves safe. Right now, you’re on the same page, you’re protecting this private thing that means so much to both of you _together_ , it’s more precious. Which makes it harder to hide.” JF leaned forward as if he’d just gotten a new thought he wasted no time to share with them.

 

“You know, happiness is a lot harder to conceal than sadness,” he said. "Because we’re getting trained for the stiff upper lip and to control our responses to hurt and anger from the youngest age on…but we’re not usually taught how to not seem happy when we are, there’s usually no need for it. And well, you guys…you seem pretty damn happy.”

“But in the past two years Scott’s been so much better than me with answering the partnership questions,” Tessa said and Scott coughed.

“You mean those times I didn’t tell people how we still loved doing it after all our years?” He asked her and she rolled her eyes at him.

“Outside of that, yeah,” she made a face. “But I’m serious. You always handled it so well.” 

“But I can’t get it out with a straight face that we’re not…I mean…that guy at the press conference in Korea who asked point blank about our relationship status?” Scott calls back to mind because that had been a trip and a half. “I panicked. I told him, like, 80% of the truth.”

 

The memory of that moment is still so fresh, even months after the fact, how they sat in that small press room and almost right off the bat this very direct question had popped up and Scott was instantly swimming. He’d been grumpy that morning, hungover and sick and tired of _that_ question being the zeroed in focus of their two-year efforts. All that fucking work they put in and yeah, their intimate relationship to him, personally meant just as much, if not more, than these two Gold medals, but that did not mean that he wanted to see his athletic career, his legacy, being wiped out and marked over with “Epic Love Story”. That’s not what he, what _they_ , had set out to do. And it swept all of their professional effort and diligence and discipline completely under the rug and that did not sit well with him. So he had answered from the heart, which might have been a mistake.

 

“Relationship status is none of your business, young man,” he’d said, snapping his fingers in a lacklustre diva-motion, in a feeble attempt to diffuse the situation with humour. But he’d been well aware that this alone was not going to fly, so he’d continued. “What I can tell you is that we have been in a very committed relationship with our sport and it’s, uh, we’re the type of athletes that…dive headfirst into, uh, into the whole process and…” _Where are you going with this, Scott?_ “I honestly don’t know where you would find time for that. And part of the reason maybe, why we wouldn’t continue was to open that side of our life and maybe, see where that goes…um…that’s, that’s pretty…that’s as personal as I’ll get but…let’s see what happens, yeah.”

 

And that had been the ’80% truth’-part. And while they would _not_ retire to _explore_ that side of their life (and yeah, he’d totally said "life” _singular_ , hadn’t he?) because they had explored it, were exploring it, and it was honestly the best thing he ever got to experience. But they _would_ retire to open up this side of their life _to the world._ Not in the New-Reality-Show-way but in the “This is true, we love each other romantically and we’re planning to spend the rest of our life together”-way. He’d tried later to reframe what he’d said, trying to sell it off as being about opening their lives to the possibility of dating other people after _skating_ but that had been glaringly obvious bullshit. 

 

Because he’d had girlfriends all through his career and even if he hadn’t been a model boyfriend to any of them, he’d made time and it had worked for certain stretches and he never kept a single one of them secret before. Yeah, he hadn’t talked too much about Jess during the Vancouver games but she was there in the audience and came down to hug and kiss him when they won. He never made them a “private thing I don’t talk about”. Hell, he’d dragged poor Cassandra into that whole reality-tv mess (not that she’d been opposed to it in the beginning, she’d liked the attention _very much_ , mind you. It only bothered her at the end of it that it looked like she was the consolation price because he couldn’t get _Tessa_ (which had not been an angle Tessa or Scott wanted to have been portrayed publicly, even if it had been the sad and honest to God truth)). 

 

But to say that his love-life was suddenly off limits was the first silly thing he’d tried to sell. The next one was saying “We’ll see how that goes” in regards to said love-life. As if he’d never had managed a relationship while skating before. As if that was an unheard of thing for Scott Moir, serial monogamist, who was never single, ever. (But had been now, as per the official version, for two and a half years.) No, “we’ll see how that goes” had been very much about Tessa and him and taking their relationship public. And that hadn’t been a thing we’d wanted to share, really. But he had and now it was out there. 

 

The one other time in his life where he’d been _that_ honest about what was really going on with him and Tessa, was back in 2009. At a CTV interview where they asked them if they would become boyfriend and girlfriend and Tessa had said “Maybe”. Which had thrown him for a colossal loop. Because during those two months, he’d been briefly off again with Jess and things with Tessa had just started going back to normal (and at that point normal had meant flirting and teasing and speaking in hazy riddles about ‘some day’s among veiled declarations of love). He’d thought they might sleep together again ( _any day now, any day_ , he’d thought) and even let himself believe they might really get together despite knowing they shouldn’t. And so he had told the complete truth then. To the whole nation of Canada. And Tessa. 

“I’ve been pitching that for the last five years and this is the first time I got a ‘maybe’,” he’d grinned, breathless and so happy, it was a little bit pathetic. “So…progress.”

 

And then almost ten years later, Korea had happened and he’d still been reeling from winning, the memory of the Plushie-ceremony fresh in his mind as he sat at that press conference. The image of Tessa glaring at him in warning for a brief second as he’d leaned down to her on the podium, as if to kiss her. And he wouldn’t have kissed her, he thinks. But there’d been this voice at the back of his mind hissing “Just do it, come on. You worked so hard, you won the fucking _Olympics_ (again), you did everything you wanted to do and achieved this great goal with this incredible woman you love more than life itself. Just kiss her, man.” 

 

But she’d given him the Stop-sign eyes and he had paused, rubbed her shoulder and told her  to “Relax, babe”, as if the thought to just out them then and there by making out over cute plush bears had never crossed his mind. So this was what he thought about a second after that answer, the second “We’ll see how it goes, yeah”, had left his mouth. That he’d fucked it up. For real this time.

 

“But that was okay at that point,” Tessa told him in therapy the day she would lie to the world on Tout Le Monde. “Babe, we’re not gonna keep this a secret forever, right? We didn’t know about _Ellen_ in Korea. If that wasn’t happening we could get to August just fine the way we have. No lies needed and your answer would have been just fine, just vague enough without being a straight out confirmation.”

“Does it end in August, though?” Scott asked her, sincerely, because they had made no firm commitment when to lift the embargo on this particular truth yet.

“I mean…, yeah?” Tessa studied him intently. “I figured after the retirement announcement, no? There will be no more reason to hide.” He just sighed heavily. “You’re not happy,” she stated.

“I don’t know, it’s a shitty situation,” he told her honestly. “If we retire and then come out with this, they’re gonna do the whole erasing our athletic achievements and reducing them to this part of our relationship anyway. That’ll be our legacy, no matter what we do. And I’m starting to think it won’t matter _when_ we come out with it.”

 

“But we can’t keep this hidden forever. I don’t want to,” Tessa said in a way that sounded like her putting her foot down. “I want to have a family with you one day and I don’t wanna have that in secret. Also good luck trying to keep it under wraps once we have to stop skating because I’m pregnant. If that won’t give us away at the latest, my eventual wale-state surely will. I don’t wanna have a baby and still sneak around like this. And try to pass it up as a business partnership thing…what, like, a gene merger? That’s ridiculous. Hell, I don’t wanna get _married_ and still sneak around like this. I don’t wanna feel like I’m ashamed of us and our relationship. I’m not ashamed.” 

“I know,” Scott said. “Neither am I.”

“You better not be,” she said sternly. “So, we get to August first. We’ll deny it today and on Ellen and…I don’t know, whenever else we _really_ have to.” She waited and stared at him until he nodded his consent and only went on after he gave it. 

 

“And apart from that, we’ll just live our lives. Do the tours and do it the way we have before the Olympics. I mean, we’re out to our friends and families, we have our boring as hell couple stuff going on anyway and we can keep doing that in our safe spaces for now and it’ll be fine,” she continued. "Just not forever. I mean, gain, as _soon_ as we pull out of show skating and I waddle into a Tim Horton’s somewhere with a baby belly, people will wonder who’s it is…if nobody thinks to check the public records for our marriage before.” (And this was hilarious because he hadn’t even proposed to her yet…he was going to, on her birthday, had the ring and everything. But it still warmed his heart all the same that she had already decided they were going to get married. That made the whole proposing thing a little less stressful to think about.) “But we don’t need to worry about that right now,” she declared. “Right now, I need to practice what I’m gonna say in that interview.”

 

And she had practiced. And delivered…okay-ish. She stumbled on the French phrase JF had translated for her and Scott plastered a strained, crazy-feeling grin on his face, thinking about the brain and how it paused before telling a lie. Thinking that, yup, that just totally happened to Tess and he’d prayed nobody else who saw knew to look for this moment too closely. For _this_ moment, _or_ the moment of pause and the looking away Tessa gave when she had answered Ellen as she asked them if the were a couple just around a week later.

 

The moment that JF is pointing out right now as he’s holding up his phone into his laptop camera, giving them screen-ception on their couch in London. Scott is glad to have been reminiscing until now and had not really been present of mind when watching back the botched choreography at their entrance to the show. (They’d missed the cue to start and it looked like they were twelve and stumblingly nervous, which they _had_ been). He also had only vaguely cringed watching himself awkwardly buff Tessa on the upper arm after Ellen congratulated them on their chemistry. ( _Wow_ , he wants to die.)

 

“I just wanna point out this thing right here,” JF says with one finger on his phone screen, pausing the god-awful video evidence of their shame. “I saw that when I watched the clip. And my wife kind of threatened to divorce me because I’ve been lying to her when she asked about you guys. Here, check this out, when Ellen asks you for the first time if you’re a couple, please look at Scott.”

 

And they do. Closely. There is _that_ moment. “Are you a couple?” And people are laughing and Tessa is looking at her hands, preparing to lie to the world but Scott —and he hadn’t paid attention to this before the one time he’d watched the clip back (and hadn’t even managed to watch to the end)— _Scott_ had done a thing…an insane, boundlessly stupid thing that he only found out about in this very second.

“Did I…?” He starts.

“You’re _nodding_!” Tessa yelped and hits him on the thigh, her head and eyes flying to him aghast and he looks at her like a deer in headlights, wobbling his head in shock.

“I swear I had no idea,” he tells her sincerely. He really hadn’t noticed. “Fuck.”

 

“That’s your amygdala making your body answer the question before your frontal cortex got the message and you worked through the don’t-lie-but-lie-well-dilemma. But then it gets better. Because Tessa does the script word for word that we’ve settled on in our session before the taping, until right this second,” JF stops the video again when Tessa launches into her ‘Mostly in those moments when the music ended…’-bit of her answer, the one that eventually led to her looking deeply into his eyes and telling him that she is so grateful ‘to have lived the last 20 years by his side’. 

 

“That’s where you lose it,” JF says, like he’s a sports commentator and hits play. “And then you go and look at him like that…and _that’s_ the moment my wife beat me with a spoon.”

Scott can just picture it. Because yeah, as much as he lived for Tessa saying that to him, in that moment, he knew it was probably a bit too… _loud_ , for a lack of a more fitting term. 

“And by the way when Ellen asks again, you’re nodding a little bit, too, Tessa,” JF remarks. “Just be aware of that. If you ever have to do it this outspokenly again. Your voices are fine, mostly, aside from the stuttering but one can write that off to general nerves…but your physical reactions give you away more than anything.” He nods at them emphatically but then stops short and laughs out loud, fully taking the piss now, because he’s remembered something else. “Oh…and the ‘ _families_ ’ thing! That was such a terribly delayed response, Scott.” 

"That was such a train wreck,” Scott shakes his head, appalled but unable not to laugh now that JF is laughing. “This whole interview was a mess.”

 

Honestly, when Ellen had said ‘So now you’re gonna settle down and start a family’, it had taken Scott’s damned pea-brain a good three seconds from going to imagining the wedding and the nursery and the little baby skates to _wait a minute_ , and correcting to ‘families, yeah’. 

 

“But my favourite moment was when you tried to throw the game on the boxers or briefs question,” JF guffaws, turning to Tessa who is shrinking where she sits. “Because, One: Even _I_ could tell you what kind he wears after the first time I swung by the rink and got you guys from the dressing room and Two: You just _couldn’t_ be wrong about it after all and just corrected Scott and gave the real answer that you knew he wears boxer briefs, anyway. Hilarious.”

 

“But it’s okay, right? All in all?” Tessa asks, sounding worried. “I still think it wasn’t that obvious?”

“It wasn’t. It’s a little bit confusing but like I said, you’re good,” JF amends, his laughing fit cooling down to a reassuring smile. “This will convince some people and keep the rest guessing. And you really looked so uncomfortable I think the media might lay off of you for a while. — But, to get remotely back to doing my job here…how do you feel? Are there legitimate worries or misgivings about this aspect of your reality right now?”

 

“I mean, I struggle with it,” Tessa shrugs. “I don’t like lying. And I feel guilty about all the people that have to keep this secret for us. I feel like after asking so so much of them in the last twenty years, now we’re asking for some more.” 

“Yeah,” Scott agrees. “I feel that, too.”

“Then just make sure those people know that,” JF nods. “Tell them that you’re grateful for it. And that it’s not gonna be forever.”

 

They will, time and time again until the secret-keeping finally ends. 

 

They also do their best not to deny the relationship afterwards unless it’s absolutely necessary. One time, Scott feels that it is. In a podcast with Scotty Livingston, infinitely glad that he’s not on camera when he realises that in talking about the wonders of therapy (because honestly, bless the ever-loving shit out of therapy!), he’d talked himself into a corner about him and Tess. The way he started out saying that most of the therapy they had was to manage their relationship (which is true) and that hadn’t sounded platonic to him at all, so he amended to buying time by adding “and most people know this” until he worked in a denial in form of something like “but Tessa and I do _not_ have a romantic relationship”. The lie coming easier this time because there was just him and Scotty and Scotty had told him before they started rolling that he wanted to keep Tessa out of the conversation as much as possible and had no interest in outing them. Scott still felt dirty for lying anyway and made up for it by telling the truth about Tessa later in that same conversation.

 

“I’ve never met anyone like Tessa in my life, like I have this…,” and he’d stopped himself before he could have said ‘I have this thing where I can’t really function without her’ and instead pivoted to: “She’s such an unbelievable woman and she’s so, I’ve never met someone so consistent, um, I can’t remember more than, like, she can get grumpy but that’s about it.” And then he’d launched into more of the same, of how she settles him, how she balances him and only barely keeps from saying that she completes him.

 

But the thing is, she does. She _does_ complete him. Has done so all his life as well as in the nearly two years that they’ve been a _dating and in love and non-platonic, non-business-related, very romantic, indeed very together couple-y_ fucking _COUPLE_ now. Still does so, every single day. And those two years with her have been the most amazing years of his life. 

 

Through a comeback that took the last of his strength at times, an undefeated season, another glorious Olympic games, a pregnancy ‘scare’, the death of a friend that would hurt forever, through quarrels, through hurting bodies and hurting hearts worrying about the competitions and the future, through sleepless nights, through heartbreak and heart-mending and, before all else, through laughter and comfort and kisses and caresses, through making love until the sun set and talking in whispers in their own little world wherever they were, through doing the work and putting in the hours and their strength into absolutely _every_ aspect of their relationship, she’d help him up, pulled him through and _completed_ him. His sentences, his body, his heart, his soul. She effortlessly filled every crevice, every void, every dip in him. She was there right where he needed her, without being told where or asked to. Making him whole. 

 

And he just hopes from the bottom of his heart, that he could do the same for her. All that he knows is that he will try to do so with all his being, until his very last breath. For the rest of his life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that was a lot to dissect! I can't wait to hear your thoughts on the meta-level of this chapter.  
> Where do you think they lied and why? What convinced you, what didn't?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> PS: Also a brief hooray! We've just passed the magical 100,000 words line and have reached novel-length officially. Thank you so much for sticking by me through all of those words!! <3


	16. ...Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting closer to the end...which means we are upping the fluff here, guys. Get ready.  
> We've also made another step forward in time and place and find our two favourite dorks on the other side of the world in the only so recent past today.
> 
> I hope you like this!
> 
> (The first 'future'-joke was inspired by the latest wonderful, wonderful chapter of "all i know is, we're all in the dance", which I would tell you to all go read but I hope you're already doing that anyway...it's so so so fantastic!!!!)

Thursday 8:02 PM, May 31st 2018 (Laval)//Friday 9:02 AM June 1st 2018 (Kanazawa)

 

They have half an hour of counselling, literally the only time they have been able to slot it in between touring and other engagements, both in Japan (Tessa and Scott) and in Canada (JF). Scott quips off the bat that they’re calling their therapist from the future and while JF laughs at the time-zone joke, Tessa does not. That’s because she is still nursing her first coffee of the day and it’s nine AM and they’d been out for sushi and sake the night before and she really would rather still be asleep with one or several body parts pressed up close against her partner and she's not in the mood for jokes of any kind yet.

 

But alas, there are some things to discuss and there’s really no other time that is feasible for their schedules, so here they are. It’s been a while since their last session, the one where they’d talked about keeping their business on the down low and so far, they’d been doing semi alright with it. Tessa, who kept regular tabs on their mentions in social media, diligently reported back to Scott periodically that people were still none the wiser, unable to believe in wide margins what was really right in front of them because they had denied it a couple of times. Truth be told, she does feel a little bit guilty for lying but, just as JF had said, her brain kept finding ample justifications for it. The two biggest ones being a) Preciousness/Privacy (this was the most important relationship in their lives and it remained the number one priority, to keep it save and sacred and close to their hearts) and b) their professional legacy (they did not want their career to boil down to “and then they fell in love and won the Olympics, ‘cause they were just so stinkin’ cute”).

 

They had good reasons to lie. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t getting old. The actively lying part about it was the worst. Before, during their comeback they hadn’t had to as much, people hadn’t cared, the media had settled on the comeback narrative more than the relationship angle and it was all fine and dandy. But it had changed during the Olympics, astronomically. Because while to Canada, the old “will they won’t they” or better “are they, aren’t they” question was trite and kind of covered every way to Sunday, for the rest of the world, theirs was a shiny new story, of love and fate and sex that had catapulted them to somewhat world renown. She did not kid herself to believe that they were super world-famous by any stretch of the imagination but for those who were sort of into figure skating, Tessa-and-Scott were by now very firmly on the map. Sadly just often for the ‘wrong’ reasons. 

 

Which was not to say that there was anything inherently wrong about them being together, or even with the fact that people wanted to know whether or not they were. It was more a question of ego vs. sentimentality, for Tessa personally. Because when she googled their names, three of the ten first hits were dealing with the status of their personal relationship and one was the link to their twitter hashtag which was pretty much tons and tons of the same. The ego in this equation wanted to see the number one hit being “Virtue Moir, best ice dancers in the world” (which they arguably were), the sentimentality made her click on the twitter link and indulge for longer than would be sensible or advisable, really, in the words of (mostly female) fans about how wonderful her and Scott would be, could be (are?!?!!), as a couple.

 

And she _does_ love reading that. She loves the crying emojis and people losing their minds a little bit about it, she loves reading the speculations, hell, she even sometimes (out of a sick, misguided curiosity) clicks on the fanfic links on twitter and reads some of them with a mix of crude fascination and cringing uneasiness. It got more eerie the better the characterisations and deductions were. It got unbearable when she read the words “Scott” and “dick” in the same sentence. (This had happened a lot recently.) The first time it did, she put her phone down, beet-red and ashamed suddenly, for herself, the person who wrote it, Scott, their _mothers_ and humanity. And then she’d sometimes continued to read on anyway because apparently there was some morbid, weird self-disconnecting—voyeuristic streak in her that most people would never discover in their lifetimes because they did not have hundreds upon hundreds of stories written about them and their significant others. And it kind of maybe, shamefully, weirdly turned her on.  A tiny little bit. Sometimes, in a strange and despicable way, and she would never admit to that out loud, not even at gunpoint. Not ever in her life. 

 

(She would, one day, far down the line, to Scott in the security of their bed. And he will laugh at her for approximately a week and a half. Then Tessa will sit down and write her own dirty story about them —for writing practice for her book, not that that would go into detail about their love life…but still, purely for academic reasons, also maybe a little to spite him— and she will give it to him to read…and he will stop laughing then.)

 

At a certain point late on the first night in Kanazawa, she had forced herself to stop and close out of maybe, _potentially_ , the third fan fiction she had skimmed that day and watched a Japanese movie on her phone (which was her way of trying to immerse herself in the culture and also to consume a little more appropriate media for someone who hoped not get weirdly addicted to reading stories about themselves on the internet) and it turned out to be a sort of “My Girl” knock-off, only that the kids both lived but eventually, grown-up, ended up marrying other people and being miserable for the rest of their lives (which was because apparently Japanese audiences really liked watching people suffer?!). 

 

Anyway, there was this similarity about childhood best friends that loved each other that had enthralled Tessa for obvious reasons and when the movie was over, she couldn’t help but imagine Scott and her like that, miserable for ever because they wound up with someone else. This had hit her harder than she would have thought and after half a minute of trying to talk herself out of it and leave him sleep in peace beside her, she’d poked him awake and snuggled close to him, kissing him awake once or twice, until he opened his eyes to hers reluctantly.

 

“What is it?” He had asked, heavily dragging a hand up and through her hair, nudging her to come to rest on his chest.

“Let’s not marry other people,” she muttered, still not fully back to reality.

“That was kind of the plan when I proposed to you,” Scott drawled and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to shake the movie’s impressions and the sadness from her heart while she listened to his beat steady and familiar under her ear.

“Seriously, though,” she reiterated. “Not even for _us_.”

“What do you mean?” He’d asked her drowsily.

“For the other people,” she clarified. “What we have between us, nobody else understands, nobody else could measure up. It wouldn’t be fair. I couldn’t ever love anybody the way I love you.”

 

And it’s really superfluous that she tells him this, because they know this. They’ve had therapy about this. Tessa-and-Scott, that is it’s own world of weird, of knowing another person better than you knew yourself, of being an extension to their bodies as they were to yours, of being one, engrained into each others DNA. And that had already been there before they took the plunge to be together. Now, they are going strong on two years in their committed relationship (and about half a month of being engaged) and it is safe to say that they are thoroughly ruined for anybody else, ever. What they have, it’s indescribable, incomparable, it’s like fate and destiny confirmed, the fact that they are who they are now. And the last two years have been wonderful. Hard, yes, strenuous, totally, ripe with conflict, that as well, but the best of her life so far none the less. They were different people, different styles and different mechanisms but hell, if they did not _fight_ guns a-blazing to make it good. If they did not work through every bump in the road like they were born to do it. And got better for it, day by day.

 

Every time they resolved an issue, Tessa fell a little bit more in love with him. Any crisis they had overcome since that tumultuous time in the summer of 2016, had brought them closer together, had taught them more about the other. The foundation of carnal trust that had blossomed after they almost had a baby had festered underneath them with every conflict they left dealt with in the past. It had grown in practices and late night talks, on travels and home stretches. And when Tessa said she needed some time alone and he kissed her on the head and gave her space. 

 

It had grown when tragedy struck at home and they had a competition to do. It had grown when he cried in her arms and told her the pain of losing a friend was just too much. It had grown when she got JF on the phone for him, in the middle of the night in their hotel in Korea because she knew she couldn’t help Scott any better than his therapist, holding his hand for the entire conversation. It had grown every time they danced their way through Moulin Rouge, every time he sang ‘Come What May’ to her, every time he held her hand on the ice (and in private where no one could see) and hooked her pinky finger between his index and middle-finger. (A weird way to hold hands but peculiar to them, a way to tell each other they loved each other —in every way— surrounded by people, in a packed ice stadium under the gaze of the world or on a virtually empty practice rink hacked into Russian mountains somewhere in Helsinki.) It had grown every night they slept together and every night they _slept together._ It had grown into the baseline of who they were as people. Their whole relationship, their whole partnership. It’s the solid ground they walk on, what they fall back on when things get tough, what would carry them forward to wherever. And it’s _everything._

 

“Well, it’s a very good thing you’re marrying _me_ , then,” Scott noted, sounding a little more awake and she felt the pressure of his other hand land on her back, drawing soft, steady circles. “You’re very, very stuck with me.”

“Scott?” She asked into his chest after a moment of basking in that last thing he’d said.

“Hm?” He hummed.

“Thank you for coming all that way out for me yesterday,” she told him softly. 

 

She’d had her big shoot for Vogue Japan ( _fucking actual real-life VOGUE!_ ) the day before and Scott had offered immediately to come with her and pass some time wandering around the busy streets before coming to get her, look at her photos and go out to dinner with her, the editor and her husband afterward. (And Jesus, this was the most couple-y thing they had ever done in semi-public, which would soon be _definitely_ -public because Tessa had decided to talk about Scott being there in the interview for the story. She covered her tracks sort of half-assedly by saying it was such a friend thing to do and talking about Jeffrey Buttle being so supportive as well on the same breath…but Jeffrey had not come to get her, looked at the screens with her photos with his eyebrows knotted together as if he had any idea about Vogue!fashion, had not put on the most expensive shirt he owned and talked her up for half an hour over dinner and patted her leg under the table. Scott had done that. Her fiancé had done that. Woah, her _fiancé_. It still feels crazy to think of him with _that_ title. Not that she’d offered that information up to anyone out of the need-to-know bubble. But still.)

 

“Don’t thank me for that. I’m trying to set a precedent here,” he said.

“What for?” She asked.

“Oh you know, that scene from When Harry Met Sally, when Harry says that you should never pick somebody up from the airport because some day you’ll not gonna want that anymore because you’ll be a lazy asshole and then the other person will say ‘You never pick me up from the airport anymore’?”

“Yeah,” Tessa chuckled. “I know the movie. I have this friend who likes it.”

“Whoever might that be?” Scott joked. (It was him.) “So anyway, I’m picking you up from the airport. Metaphorically and for real. Every time. I wanna support you.”

“You also came to the CTV takeover,” she reminded him. “So technically the precedent is already set.”

“True, well then I am cementing it now,” he said. “I wanna be here for whatever you choose to do.”

“But what if that puts me on the other side of the globe from you?” She had asked as the thought hit her and he had frozen under her body in reply.

“Do you have an offer for something?” He asked her, voice trembling ever so slightly.

“No,” she hurried to say. “But theoretically…something like that could happen, maybe. I mean, we have our year mapped out but nothing beyond that. Maybe we should sit down and have a conversation about…about our future, you know? Like, the _future_ -future.”

 

Which is how they decided to talk JF into skyping with them at eight PM at night. So that they could tackle one of the nowadays seldom-but-still-there _difficult_ conversations under professional supervision. 

“How are you guys?” JF asks and Tessa thinks he’s video-calling from his living room (which she guesses is fine because they’re calling him from their literal _bed_ ). If anything, it’s a background she has never seen and she feels a bit guilty for bothering him so late…but he had promised them that it was okay and he didn’t mind, so here they were.

“Tessa will talk to you in five minutes once she has finished that coffee,” Scott says helpfully and pats her knee, handing her the coffee he’d just made for her in the suite’s kitchenette. “We just got up, really and she didn’t sleep well. I’m gonna make her nap as soon as we’re done.”

 

Instead of saying anything, Tessa just nods and shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee, inviting her personality to re-inhibit her exhausted, slightly over-worked body (because what Scott had neglected to mention was that not only had she taken forever to fall asleep the night before, she’d also started trying to find it really late because he’d been _very_ indulgent between their sheets. And because she’d been too into it to think straight, she hadn’t stopped to calculate how many hours of sleep she would be losing from it. 

 

And mind you, it isn’t like Scott is usually done quickly with her (unless she asks him to make it so or he is really, _really_ strung out), so yesterday wasn’t an outlier, just more their ‘It’s Sunday and we’re gonna spend it in our underwear having sex every couple of hours just because we can’-kind of timing as opposed to their ‘We got work tomorrow but I want you, let’s be efficient’-kind of sex usually happening on tour. But even those are rarely ever under half an hour, longer unless Tessa points at the clock eventually. It’s mostly her cutting things short. Scott could go for hours, teetering himself on the edge with a single minded-focus that seems insanely controlled for someone so passionate, bringing the same ‘mind over matter’-attitude to their bedroom that he takes to the gym and the ice. But then again, he _is_ a model athlete after all. In every avenue.

 

Honestly, when she’d said in one solo interview a while ago that he could outlast everyone, she hadn’t just meant at parties. Nope, she’d managed to get herself a man with Stamina, capital S, fuelled by an almost obsessive determination to be present in it all, to soak and bask and bathe in their lovemaking, to savour it and make it fun and make it count, every single time. Which is pretty convenient, considering that once he gets her started, she will always match him touch to thrust. It makes for a pretty fucking legendary sex life (which is awesome)…but it also makes for getting way too little sleep on their travels. (And yeah, the entire cast of ‘Fantasy On Ice’ probably has a pretty good idea that Scott Moir, on this tour like on the last, does not sleep in the hotel room that had been booked for him. But nobody discusses it either, at least not to their faces.)

 

So, tired as ever, she keeps up downing her coffee, feeling the caffeine sink into her veins, bringing her back online, Standby-Robot—Tessa to Working-Machine-Tessa (they had watched _Westworld_ together on the plane…it had had an impact). Scott, meanwhile, puts JF up to date, conversationally and breezily, and careful not to get his bare knees into the frame of the camera, because he couldn’t be bothered to put on pants for this.

 

“So that was the Vogue shoot,” he finishes that part of the recent developments and moves on to the next. “And now we got Kanazawa shows, three in a row, before we leave for Antwerp. We’ll have two days to ourselves there before the Gold Medal Plates group gets in and on June 5th we have the _Thank You Canada-_ tour announcement, so at least that will be out. And then after Belgium more shows in Japan until July 8th. The retirement thing. And vacation in August. Then the tour in the fall.”

 

“Scott, did you tell him about the thing yet?” Tessa says under her breath, the first time she speaks that morning, because she honestly does not remember if they have. They’d told their parents and friends but had they told JF?

“About what thing?” Scott asks her and she glances down at her left hand, the one with the two rings she always wears (he had given her two rings for the engagement as well, one very loud diamond one and one with little stones in an unassuming band that looked almost exactly like a ring she already owned and had just slyly replaced, leaving none but the two of them any the wiser what exactly she was wearing there). “Oh, no, shit, I haven’t.” And then he turns to JF, his body shrinking into an apology. “I’m so sorry man, with the traveling and everything…I forgot. We got engaged! On Tessa’s birthday.”

 

JF’s face lights up, sincerely and adorably. “Oh my Gosh,” he says, like a schoolgirl. “That’s wonderful! Congratulations, guys!”

“You’re obviously invited,” Tessa grins, the expression of joy feeling rusty on her grumpy morning-face, but she really _is_ happy that he’s so happy for them. “You kind of really made this happen all by yourself. We don’t have a date set yet and it won’t be until twenty-nineteen but you _so_ need to be there.”

“I really don’t want to take any credit for this,” JF shakes his head but then makes a face. “Although for a guy who is not really a relationship counsellor, one out of one coached couples getting married is a pretty good track record.”

“Hundred percent success rate,” Scott laughs. “Jean-François, romance whisperer.”

“Exactly,” the other man rolls his eyes affectionately. “So, let me whisper some more there before we get completely off track. You said you had a complicated conversation to start?”

 

“Yeah, it’s kind of in the vein of that,” Scott tells him. “About the future, like, the far-off future. Because all we know so far for after this year is that we want to put the World tour together if we can and get married. But outside of that…I don’t think we really know what we’re gonna do. Where we’re gonna live, even. That’s a bit daunting.”

“Okay…so, what we need…is a road map, yeah?” JF states routinely, gearing into action. “You need to know what you want to do separately and together. Lets start by collecting that, I’d say. What do we have there that’s fixed?”

 

“I think I want to coach,” Scott says tentatively and then amends: “No, I _know_ I want to coach. At Gadbois, for now. Then maybe one day do my own thing in London. But yeah, first, I wanna help out Patch and Marie. And put something together that’s a little like B2Ten, maybe, but more on the…psychological side. Working with you has helped us so much, I want to create something, some program or company or whatever to help young athletes be mentally ready and taken care of. In a safe environment. Especially for the girls.”

 

“And Tessa?” JF asks.

“I want to get that MBA,” she answers, because that is what she knows firmly. “I could do that at Gills. And I want a company, like, a _brand_. You know, do jewellery and…maybe a line of active wear. Greeting cards, something creative. And give back, to the sport and…society. I know that sounds like I’m some purse-designer heiress but…you know. Maybe write a book one day.”

“Oooh,” Scott says, perking up because that is new information to him as she had just recently started thinking about maybe writing (and bless his heart, for all the time they spent together, he still firmly wants to know the stuff about her that he hadn’t known before). “Novel or Autobiography?”

“Not a novel, I don’t think,” she tells him, figuring it out as she goes along. “Just maybe, something, like, life affirming. Like the Lea Michele book. You know, about life tips and fashion and stuff.”

Scott groans. He had very, very, very much hated her _Glee_ phase back in the day. (“They just ruined ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ for an entire generation in their very first episode, T! How can you like that crap?!”) At one point, years ago at the rink in Canton, he had personally changed the Glee version of “You Make My Dreams” to the Hall  & Oates version, saying that if he _had_ to listen to it, he would like it without the autotune, please.

 

“I thought you were gonna write about me,” he says and she knows he’s kidding. “Three hundred pages about your amazing life-partner-best-friend-skater-husband. One chapter dedicated just to how handsome I am.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She teases and pokes him in the side. He nods, looking like a puppy and she can’t help but pinch his cheek. The way he curls into the touch is more like a cat, though. “Maybe I’ll mention you in the acknowledgements.”

“But that aside, that sounds like you could do that from Montreal, right?” JF says, obviously picking the location aspect of their uncertainty first and nudging them back on track of the conversation.

“Yeah,” Tessa says. “But there might be other opportunities for me, I’d definitely have to travel. I want to travel, too.” 

“And that worries you,” JF states. It’s not a question.

“I guess,” she muses. “I mean, I can be alone, that’s not the issue here but we’ve…I don’t know, we’ve spent maybe three days apart in the last two years and like, even if I stayed completely put in Montreal, Scott will still eventually have to travel for coaching, like Patrice does. He’s gone…a _lot._ ”

 

“Well, we already said that we’re gonna keep working together,” Scott says. “We’ll find ways and projects.” 

“And have a family.” She adds.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “That could be…”

“Tough,” she finishes for him. “Once we have a kid everything will be different. One of us is always going to have to be there. I’m just scared that we won’t see each other or get like, time to ourselves once the touring ends and everything.”

“You could coach,” Scott suggests. “Eventually, like Marie. Choreograph, work with me?”

“I’m not a coach though, Scott,” she says, wrinkling her brow and finishing the last sip of her coffee. “You’re a natural, I’m way too impatient. And like…I’ll have a kid at home.”

“ _We’ll_ have a kid at home,” he corrects her and something flashes across his face that makes her alarm bells go ‘cling’. “I’m gonna be there for that. I’m not just gonna…jet off and leave you alone with that.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to. You know how much Patch is gone,” she reminds him and his jaw clenches. 

“I’m gonna be there for our kids, T,” he says, with a stern and stubborn emphasis that tells her it’s time to tread carefully.

“I’m just saying, it’s gonna be hard,” she cautions and decides to table that discussion for another day…to cross that bridge when they get there. “It’ll work out. I’m just worried about spending time with you. About getting to spend _enough_ time with you.”

 

“You should decide on a home base,” JF offers from the sidelines. “A place that is a fixture. So that would have to be Montreal if Scott starts working at Gadbois.”

“Yeah,” Tessa nods. “But we could keep the London house to have a place near our family still…or rent my house out and move my stuff to yours once that’s done.”

“Should be all set in twenty-forty,” Scott nods and she chuckles, him and his brothers really are the slowest handymen in all of Canada, probably. “But yes, keep a place in London but…get a house in Montreal?”

“Sounds smart,” Tessa agrees. _Phew, a decision._ That feels nice. “And I could have maybe, like a home office? If I start a company. I mean I guess my Mom would probably help get it started but if we had some more space, I could maybe employ one or two people. If that was all based out of Montreal and our actual house, the kids thing would be perfectly fine, ‘cause I could just work from home.”

 

“I mean…is there a timeline on that?” Scott asks her, the conversation moving rapidly now that they’re finally having it, evident that they’ve both spent some time going over the whole thing in their heads. She turns her head to him, sensing that he senses a possible discord coming. “When…um, you know, kids are gonna be a thing?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” she says (a lie and he knows, she’s thought about _everything_ , couldn’t have helped it). “I was thinking maybe twenty-twenty-one? That would give us one and a half, two years to still skate and cover some ground there, get settled into our new careers and build something for ourselves? And have a little time to just be together.” He furrows his brow. “Did you wanna wait longer? Or do it sooner? I’ll be thirty-two, that’s an okay age to have a kid, I thought. And maybe, like, a couple more?”

“A couple more?” He asks her and the frown turns to a grin. “Our own hockey team?”

“No,” Tessa laughs. “But like, maybe two or three.”

“Or four,” Scott offers.

“We’ll see,” she says, trying to imagine a world in which she and Scott have four children, picturing herself with her siblings, remembering the early days when their parents had still been happy together and thinks that she and Scott could probably pull that off, maybe. “But yeah. That was the timeline I thought. You okay with that?”

“I mean, honestly I could go right now,” he says. “But the skating…and the time for ourselves and the traveling, that’s something to keep in mind, yeah. So, I guess I’m fine with waiting, yes.”

 

“So we got a house in Montreal and starting a family in twenty-twenty-one,” JF surmises and Tessa gets the sense that he is trying to be very efficient with the little time they have (turbo-therapy-style). “That’s two things. Honestly, I think that’s enough for now, right? To get things started, that’s not so bad. Only…the secrecy thing, maybe. Have you talked about what the plan is for that?”

“We’re flip-flopping,” Scott tells him honestly. “We keep going back and forth about when to tell people. If we wanna do it at the retirement, or wait a week or wait till after the book and the tour or ‘till we’re married…”

 

“Only that it’s harder and harder to keep this under wraps,” Tessa mutters. “More and more people know. It’s gonna be a pain to hide it at the Gold Medal Plates trip. I mean, we’re gonna spend a week with like thirty people who will…like, maybe see things. Or _film_ things.”

“They do get NDA’s though,” Scott tells her and she tilts her head at him because she hadn’t known that. “Yeah, I asked Russell.” (Their agent.) “Like, light ones, but still. And I mean, we’re gonna give some speeches, we can tell them we’re not together. It worked okay so far.”

“Yeah, on twitter, with strangers,” Tessa argues. “But these people are gonna spend so much time with us. It’ll be harder to fool them.”

 

“We _do_ have separate rooms, though,” Scott reminds her and she gives him a look.

“We have separate rooms now,” she says and points at their surroundings, sitting on the bed they shared the two nights before, propped against the headboard with the laptop sitting on a room service tray in front of them because they hadn’t even managed to leave their bed for this.

“Yeah, well, we can use those separate rooms for once,” Scott offers. 

“That’s gonna be a long week,” Tessa sighs.

“Or I could sneak over to you,” he murmurs, voice dropping to huskiness, leaning in and she catches his eyes, dark and tempting and yes, hm-mh, she likes that idea _very_ much. “Crawl into your bed in the dead of night and-”

“Guys,” JF hisses. “Still here.” 

“Sorry, Jeff,” Scott says, a shit-eating grin splitting his face, wickedly amused, and takes a long moment to actually look at the poor guy as Tessa blushes, which is the decent thing to do.

“But so, back to the matter at hand,” JF says, with that ‘let’s move on, fast’-tone. “Timeline. For the big relationship reveal.”

 

“I have no idea,” Scott says truthfully. “I don’t know what’s the smartest way forward.”

“Me neither,” Tessa agrees. “But it feels more silly by the day, for me at least, to pretend that this is not happening. And now that we’re engaged…I mean, not to be corny-“

“No, corny and cheesy is _my_ job,” Scott throws in.

“-but I wanna wear that ring,” Tessa says, continuing. “It’s a damn beautiful ring.”

“Yeah, it is,” Scott says, bragging a little.

“I know it’s never going to be ideal, coming out with it,” she goes on. "And there’s not really a strategy for that either, how we’re gonna deal with the repercussions of lying. Like…as soon as we come out with it, everyone will know that we lied through our teeth.”

“Repeatedly,” Scott supplies.

“Exactly,” she says. “And people might be mad at us.” 

“But you lied for good reasons,” JF interjects. “And technically, you don’t owe anybody anything. This is your life, like Marie said, you gotta live it the way you feel.”

 

“Still,” Tessa remains. “We have our reasons but it’s still a little shitty.”

“But you are…what did you say those tweets said?” Scott turns to her. “Like, about opening it up?”

“ _Loud on Instagram_ ,” Tessa tells him helpfully. “Yeah, I’m sharing that we spend pretty much all of our time together. And everybody knows that we’re not seeing other people.” She pauses a minute, deliberates if she wants to bring it up and then thinks _what the hell_. “Not that people don’t try to tie you to any human female standing in a twenty meter radius near you.” 

“What?” Scott asks, incredulously.

“Yeah,” she nods. “Carolina was last. And Greg’s friend from the Canada tour.”

“Who?” He asks.

“Exactly,” Tessa says. “They don’t do it to me either. It’s always just you with the secret girlfriends.”

“How would I have a secret girlfriend?” Scott asks, sounding appalled. 

“Well, technically you _do_ have one,” she shrugs and he laughs.

 

“Yeah but like, if it was anybody other than you,” he says. “What a giant fucking asshole would I be? We’re all over each other. I mean… _Shape Of You_?! Doing that with a girlfriend who’s not you in front all of Canada and their mothers?! What a dick move.”

“ _Say It Right_ ,” is all Tessa says. (Because that program and their…connection dancing through that technically been maybe just as bad at certain points…and Kaitlyn had been very much still in the picture at the time.)

“That was your fault,” he insists. “You were touching me, that wasn’t fair. But anyway…right now, we’re on tour, for months. We spend every day together, how could people think that I…”

“Because we’re lying about being a couple,” Tessa shrugs and he gives a ‘Fair Enough’-nod in response. “Nobody knows what to make of us.”

“Maybe we can ease them into it,” he says. “If you keep being… _loud_.” 

“Yeah,” she agrees. She can definitely do that. 

 

She’ll post some _very_ loud things from Belgium, making sure to put a very ambiguous quote about ‘traveling’ but actually about ‘destinations’ on an Instagram story, right next to Scott in front of a church —hello?!—, a quote that goes ‘One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things’, highlighted in blue, on the same third of the picture that has Scott in his blue denim jacket, tying the two together, the quote and Scott, because duh, _he_ is her destination, their relationship and the new way of seeing that relationship what she is really alluding to and it’s as loud as she dares to get. That and the photo that has a brewery and a chocolate shop right next to each other, his and hers tourist-traps, perfect for them, honestly. 

 

A couple of days later she will check twitter to learn that there are rumours about another secret girlfriend for Scott though anyway, and that’ll take the cake. Because Lily Colins, that actress from the cute “kid best friends to lovers”-movie that Tessa had liked very much for reasons, had been in Antwerp apparently on the day that they left for Reims and so that’s evidence enough for Scott hooking up with her. Tessa will laugh for a day, approximately, not flattering herself that the woman had actually ever even heard of them probably. But yeah, that’s how confused everybody is about the state of affairs between Tessa-and-Scott. She’ll resolve to up the volume even more then. 

 

And even more, once the GMP people decide for some ungodly reason to post a snippet of one of their speeches from the trip where Scott pulled the term ‘bandmates’ out of his ass to describe their relationship after saying they are “obviously not romantic” — _ha!…obviously!_ While a hickey she had given him, ruefully blamed on the complete loss of her mental capacities in the throes of passion, was slowly fading from his neck, right there for everyone to see _—_ offering a new rendition of their old ‘business partners’-shtik that she couldn’t do anything about but nod at him and try not to laugh out loud. This leads to two things: One, their whole tag on twitter having a golly good ol’ time making fun of them for _days_ once it goes public, perfect with silly to hilarious band names for them, and Two, Scott shutting her up when she teases him about it, by sex and lots of it, on the night that it happened. She’ll call Russell as soon as she’s spent ten minutes online checking their mentions after it drops and tells him to tell GMP to take it down and _immediately._ Not that anybody would forget it any time soon. But seriously, _bandmates_?! They’ll kinda have a point.

 

“That’s an okay plan,” JF concedes, before any of this happens, in their quickly passing half-hour session on June 1st. “Be a little bit more open with the allusions to it, like…tell people before you _tell_ people. And then you can see how the responses are and wait and see until after the retirement announcement when and how you want to really make it official.”

“I guess that’s all we can do,” Scott says and Tessa knows that he will never be happy about how it will wind up going down. No matter what happens.

“They won’t forget what we did,” she reassures him and hopes to God that it’s true, “they won’t forget our career. What we accomplished. Maybe they’ll…freak out about it for a while and maybe we’re gonna have to give a couple of interviews and that might suck. But I don’t want to live our life in the shadows just to avoid that. I love you…that’s a part of me, too. I don’t want to hide that forever. I’m too proud of _this_ for that.”

“I know,” he mutters and pats her thigh. “Me, too. It’s just a lot.”

 

(It’ll be a little worse and at the same time a lot less crazy than either of them expected once they do take the big step out into the open, but they’re just fine after, honestly. They always are.)

 

“It’s okay to be anxious,” JF tells Scott from halfway across the world. “It’s a scary thing and it’s so important to you both and it won’t always be easy. Not just the coming forward with the truth but also navigating this relationship through the transition to…civilian life. And then to have a marriage and raise children together. There will be times when it gets overwhelming. But you have all the tools at hand. Everything that you need.”

“Thanks, man,” Scott smiles and takes Tessa’s hand as she echoes the sentiment eagerly. “We really appreciate you taking the time.”

“Always happy to help,” their therapist smiles and then someone in the background of his feed says ‘honey’ and JF sits up straighter and calls back ‘in here’. Half a minute later a pretty woman leans into the frame and her eyes light up when she sees Tessa and Scott.

 

“Oh, hi!” She says and Tessa and Scott wave. “How’s it going?” And then she mutters to her husband “The weight-lifter and the runner,” and JF shoots her a glare that Tessa can’t make sense of. Much like her comment but it doesn’t bother her enough to ask about it.

“It’s great,” Tessa says instead, answering her question. “Are we keeping your husband away?”

“Just a little,” the other woman grins easily. “Dinner is ready. And what I mean by that is that the delivery guy just brought the pizza.” 

“Oh, don’t let us keep him,” Scott hurries. “That pizza can’t get cold. I think we’re good here, too. For now.”

“We still have a minute or two,” JF says but Tessa shakes her head vehemently.

“No, no, we’re alright,” she says. “Thank you so, so much. And if you can make it to the party in Ilderton, you’re all invited. Bring the kids and everything.”

“Thanks guys, we will if we can wing it,” JF’s wife nods. 

“Have fun in Belgium,” their psychologist adds and then they’re hanging up with smiles and waves and Tessa feels lighter already, talking to JF always helps. They might still not know exactly what is going to happen but they have a direction now, a destination. And it’s all going to be okay.

 

“So,” Scott says after he has closed the laptop and lifted it plus tray off the bed and to the side. “We got a good two hours before we have to get down for lunch. Nap?”

Tessa nods happily, already stretching her limbs and then keeps her arms open for him to cuddle close, just like she loves it, feeling him click in beside her, folding into their comfortable first snuggle-position, her on his chest, her head tucked under his chin, listening to his heartbeat until they’re the same and she’s maybe a little bit queasy about the future still but she’s not afraid.

 

Never afraid, not with Scott by her side. Close to her, always, in and around and forever. 

“I’m so glad we’re alive at the same time,” she mutters into his shirt, the one that smells like sleep and sex and Scott.

“Me, too,” he whispers and kisses the top of her head and she’s happy. She’s really never been this happy. 

“See, I can be corny and cheesy, too,” she smiles and he chuckles, his chest vibrating with it in the cutest way.

“Oh, I know,” he sighs affectionately. “Secretly, you’re way worse than me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The usual thanks still apply: Thank you for reading and for and feedback, I love hearing your thoughts and I can't wait to get this project over the finish line with all of you on the next (last!!!) chapter!
> 
> Thank you all so much!!


	17. ...Gratitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I am really posting the last chapter of this! It's a little bit shorter as it serves as an epilogue of sorts and is just very fluffy fluff-fluff (which we all deserve after this rollercoaster, huh?) :)
> 
> Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart for taking this crazy ride with me! <3

Thursday 4:06 PM, October 20th 2022

 

They had pondered renting out the Winery again but in the early stages of planning, it had become very apparent that they would just be having too many guests to fit them all into the main room and they did not want to have to split groups. So they wound up booking the Crystal Ballroom at the London Best Western because it would seat their 400+ guests comfortably while still allowing for a dance floor (which was important!). This is also how they wound up completely in over their heads a couple weeks before with vendors and everything for such a big space but with a little help from their touring contacts, on the day itself, everything ended up just fine (okay, the chair covers wound up being navy blue instead of champagne coloured which kind of was at war with the pinkish peonies Tessa had chosen for the flower arrangements but then they just told everyone that the decor was inspired by their Latch program from back in the day and nobody stopped to question it). 

 

The celebration, as per their (Tessa’s) detailed invitation, started at exactly 3:45 PM at get-in. Everybody was supposed to have arrived by then to receive a welcome drink and pick their seats at the round tables set up for them. At exactly 4:00 PM, Scott was supposed to start giving their speech. At 4:06 PM, he does get up to the stage at the far end of the hall, Tessa in tow with their one-year old propped up on her hip, and steps up to the mic stand which prompts the vivid chatter of their guests to ebb quickly. (Tessa is pleased with being on schedule, he can tell. Also, Almost all of their guests have actually arrived up to this point! Go Canadian punctuality!)

 

Scott hits the mic with the back of his index finger twice to check if it’s on and when he finds that it is, he glances over his shoulder at Tessa who nods at him encouragingly and readjusts her hold on their son who is fussing a bit in her grip, reaching for his Dad with his chubby baby arms.

 

“Hey everybody,” Scott says, tearing his eyes from his kiddos, looking back around at all the faces turned to him and waves at Charlie and Nicole with their gaggle of kids when he spots them there because he hadn’t managed to say hi to them personally before. “Thank you so much for coming today, we’re so glad that so many could make it. Uh, so, you know with a new baby to take care of, it gets tough sometimes to make time for your friends and families, this is why it was so important for us to get all of you guys back in one room together at least once this year. To thank you for all of your amazing support over this last year but more importantly, for the last quarter century. That’s right, we’re _that_ old,” he jokes and waits for the sympathetic laugh to hit and ebb to chuckles before he goes on. 

 

“Yup, today —or you know, somewhere around today, we don’t really remember so well— marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Tessa and I’s partnership.” Some people hoot, but most clap politely for a second. “It is also —and this we remember for sure, thank God— Bellamy’s first birthday-“ (more clapping and Scott reaches beside him to touch his fingers onto his son’s pudgy little arm for a second and he wobbles it up and down in response, a hick-up catching in his throat.) “And, also, as if that all wasn’t enough, we have also been married three years and three months to the day today,” Scott says, eventually, turning his attention back to the crowd and takes their applause with a contented smile.

 

Tessa, beside him, takes a step forward and, as planned, hands over the baby so she can say a few words, too. The passing him over is a well-choreographed and often executed move that Scott could very well do in his sleep and Bell goes willingly enough, landing with his legs on either side of Scott’s stomach, sitting on his hip and arm. The baby reaches with his fingers for the scruff on Scott’s chin and attempts to grasp the hairs in his tiny hands, which is an utterly fruitless endeavour, not that this does anything to dissuade him from trying.

 

“Ow, buddy,” Scott whispers, because even if they’re small, his son’s fingernails hurt looking for purchase on his jaw and he catches the hand in his, plucks it from his face and waves it around a little, looking at the boy and making a face to entertain him. Bell’s mop of soft brown hair shudders as he tries to mimic his Dad’s grimaces and winds up just bopping his head from side to side and giggles, a sound like his name, and Scott can’t help but grin from ear to ear, his vision blurring from how small his eyes get (he knows from years and years of having to watch himself on camera that his face turns into one entire scrunch when he does this but he doesn’t care, he has the best kid in the world and he’s not sorry for being stupidly happy about it). 

 

“Like Scott said, we’re so happy to see you all,” says Tessa as he dips his forehead against that of his son and then both boys turn to his mother as she speaks. “Twenty-five years is a long time for two people to spend nearly every day together, through highs and lows and everything in between and we are very aware and very thankful that so many of you have been there for long stretches if not this entire journey with us. I know the invite said we want to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary with you, but really, we would just really like to celebrate _you._ Your steadfast, unwavering support through the years, your unconditional love, help and care has made _everything_ possible for us. We would not be here without the contributions every last one of you has made to our lives and so, without further ado, we would like to get this party started, to honour you all and thank you from the bottom of our hearts, for twenty-five years…and now go eat and drink, the buffet is ready!”

 

The round of applause is hilariously given by most of the people while walking backwards to the two row buffet set up at the other side of the Ballroom until it stops and they just actively chase each other to the food. Scott would be a little bit annoyed about people getting the head start but he had asked Cara and Sheri to load Tess and him plates beforehand and from what he can make out in the distance (which isn’t much, he really needs to start wearing his glasses more), it looks like his cousins have snatched up good spots at the front of the cue. So he is content just watching the bustle for a little while and then walks down the stage, his son on one arm and his wife on her high heels on the other as he helps her down the stairs. They had purposefully not assigned seats in order for their friend groups to mesh more and had even planned a couple of games for the night that would have everybody change tables at least twice to facilitate this merry get-together and get-to-know-each-other for those who did not do already. 

 

So they browse tables for a while, happy drifters at their party and find most of them still empty as their guests are lining up for food. But there, at a table a few metres down the dance floor, JF has just sat down with his son, looking for his wife who quickly joins after with their daughter. Tessa gives Scott’s arm a squeeze and then charges ahead to sit down at their table just a moment after JF’s wife. They all greet each other warmly, it has been a while since they’ve seen his wife in person and even a month or two since they had last seen JF. 

 

They still have semi-regular partnership counselling sessions with him and Scott still sees him at least every other week on his own but it had not been on their old strict weekly basis in a really long time. So it means even more to them that he made the trip from Montreal to London with his whole family and Tessa wastes no time telling him that. (Originally, for a hot second, they had deliberated having the party in Montreal as they, too, had to make it a weekend getaway from Quebec but in the end it had seemed more right to celebrate the occasion in their home town, so here they were.)

 

“Oh, we wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” JF says and grins. “And look, it’s pretty much our Thursday’s appointment time. So where else would I be?”

“It is, isn’t it?” Scott says and looks at his watch, only having to shift Bellamy marginally on his lap for it so he can twist his wrist into view from beneath his son’s chubby little body. It’s 4:22 PM.

“So, how are you guys feeling?” JF asks them from across the table with a wink. Ever their psychologist.

“Pretty darn good, man,” Scott nods and the other man’s eyes flit to the baby on his lap.

“He’s getting so big,” his therapist says. “He was such a tiny little one the last time I saw him.”

“Yeah, he’s really growing like a weed,” Tessa nods. 

“Getting fat like his Dad,” Scott quips and earns himself a swat on his shoulder from Tessa.

“You’re both healthy and wonderful and weigh the perfect amount,” she says sternly. There is no body shaming in the Virtue-Moir household (and actually Scott only put on a little weight since retiring, most of it sympathy pregnancy weight at that, but he is working on getting it off now that he has started coaching _fully_ full-time at Gadbois after taking a season mostly off around and after Bellamy’s birth to stay home with him and Tessa).

 

“He sure _looks_ like his Dad, though,” JF’s wife says, nodding to Scott and Bellamy.

“Everybody thinks that,” Tess laughs. “I always think he looks more like me. But Alma says it too, the first thing she said when she saw him was ‘He looks exactly like Scott when he was born’.”

“But he’s got her eyes,” Scott tells the round. “Especially now that they look like they’re staying green. We weren’t sure for a while and in certain light, it’s near hazel, right? But it looks like the green is gonna stick.”

“Yeah, probably,” Tessa nods. “Still, the nose is absolutely Moir.”

“It is, the poor guy,” Scott laughs and Bell, who just likes the sound of laughter in general, chimes in with one of his own.

 

“Is he sleeping better now?” JF asks, because the last time they’d seen him for a session, they’d both been running on fumes. Their son had been colicky for a phase of very long nights and one or two trips to the ER to check out his fever. (And all had been well and just due to teething every last time but Scott had just felt better making sure, even if Tessa had always stayed calm like a mountain lake, holding Scott’s hand as well as Bellamy’s when the doctor came to check on their son’s condition and said ‘I told you so, nothing to worry about’ when they were given the all-clear to take their baby home again).

 

“He does,” Tessa says. “No more fever since, what? Five weeks now? We’ve been getting a good seven, eight hours of sleep at night, too, even with the teeth. So he’s doing really great right now.” 

“And how’s it going with Scott coaching?” JF inquires further.

“Good,” Tessa answers. “So far. I mean now the home-office-ing finally really feels like what it’s called. I’ve got him there with us in the office during the day and it’s just fine. He likes watching us work, I think.”

Scott nods in accord, thinking of the tons of pictures he has on his phone, sent to him by Tessa during the day when he’s at the rink, of Bellamy lounging around on his blanket in the corner and just observing his mother’s doings. From the videos she’d send occasionally too, Scott could tell that just like at night when he put him to bed, his son had recently started giving a running, gurgling commentary on the happenings around him and he was always filled with a warmth of a brand he had never known when a “Dada” slipped in to that here and there.

 

It was Dada half the time and Mami the other half and that summed their last year up pretty good. They had tag-teamed it, co-captained it, done it together, all of it. And through it all, Tessa had not only managed to raise a baby with him, grow a business (just like she had planned), they had also grown their _relationship._ Added the roles of mother and father, being parents to a full human and even through full diapers and sleepless nights, they had not lost sight of each other. 

 

He still falls in love with her every single day, with how wonderful of a Mom she is, how amazing a wife. How she dances in the kitchen with their baby on her hip and sings him country songs, unashamed and unabashed. How she talks Scott into bubble baths and DIY projects at home, building a seesaw and a tree-house in their back yard with their son watching from his play pen on the porch. How they touch ground every night once Bellamy is asleep, tucked into their king size bed, and talk and whisper and kiss and just enjoy being together. Like they always had, ever so so lucky to have each other through all of it. How she understood him, still so much better than anybody else in the world. 

 

How they are partners in every way. How she laughs at his jokes and calms his nerves as if they were still two wide-eyed teens at their first skating competition on the world stage. How he can make her scream and whimper his name as if they were two reckless dance partners longing for each other even though they weren’t supposed to, savouring every night like it could be their last. How much he trusts her, just as he had when they were older and wiser than they had been in their early twenties, going into a new adventure together with their eyes and hearts fully open for the first time, aiming for the Gold. How much he is looking forward to the next _twenty-five years_ with her. (How she had told him at the beginning of the week that she wouldn’t be drinking Champagne at their anniversary because she was _absolutely-100%-certainly_ pregnant again.) How their family is growing, day by day, how it will continue to grow. Like vines. Like _bamboo trees_. Resilient, adaptable, unstoppable. And better than anything he could have ever dared hope for in his wildest, _wildest_ dreams.

 

“Sounds like things at home are really fantastic,” JF notes on an easy smile.

“They really are,” Scott says from his overflowing heart, pressing a soft kiss on the top of his son’s head (that baby smell is still like absolute crack to him). He basks for a second in the moment, in how beautiful it all is and how he feels like this day, right now, is perfect and his life is just right, just so, just like it was always supposed to be and it’s all he can do not to cry. “We’re really lucky. Lucky to have had you to help us get here, too.”

“Exactly,” Tessa agrees and puts her hand on Scott’s shoulder, rubbing it casually as she talks to JF. “We owe you so much.”

“Pshh,” JF scoffs and waves his hand in their direction. “I barely did anything. Just gave you a little push here and there…and some biology lectures.”

“Well, we needed all of it,” Tessa reiterates. “And now look where it got us. Honestly, we mean it. Thank you, JF.”

 

“Oh, you guys,” the man says, that stellar, _stellar_ dude. “It was my pleasure.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heart is as full as Scott's. I hope you're a little happy with this ending, too.
> 
> I would LOVE to hear from you, questions, feedbacks, head canons, I'll be happy about it all.
> 
> Regarding the baby name; Bellamy means "Friend", which I thought was very fitting for those two's first baby. I hope you like it as much as I do (also The 100, amirite?!).  
> Regarding the series: If you want to read some more from this universe, you can check out the story STAY! (formerly known as Just Stay) if you haven't yet and there will be a sequel coming soon which will be called BALANCE!, so keep an eye out for that or subscribe to my author page so you won't miss it.
> 
> Last but not least and once again: THANK YOU ALL! So so so much, your feedback and encouragement means the world to me!  
> Hopefully until next time (or until I see you in the comments)!  
> Love, -E
> 
> PS: You can tell your friends who don't like WIPs to check this out now if you like ;) <3

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, there's a lot of work headed our way. Are you ready? I'm not sure...Tessa isn't, obviously.  
> Thank you if you've read until here and I hope you'll come back for the next chapter :)


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